Lost Letters
by lily moonlight
Summary: An unusual piece of evidence at a scene draws the team into danger; lives are at stake as they try to solve the case. Crime, drama & suspense. Mac/Stella, DL, Flack/Angell; Hawkes, Sid & Adam. Complete. All answers and final fates revealed.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.**

**Notes**** First chapter of a new story. Danger for characters, as well as, hopefully, the unexpected and an unusual case. The italics are extracts from letters linked to the case. I'd love to know what you think - reviews are very welcome, and always replied to.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 1

_23__rd__ August_

…_So I gave up after a while, and walked out. Guess I'd had enough of being indoors with them and all their talk. It was one of those evenings when you could walk for ever along the streets so I just had to be outside. Everything was still, caught in a heat haze, same as the last few weeks. We've had no rain in all that time. I guess tomorrow's going to be as hot as today and yesterday and the day before. The window-boxes are suffering, and Mrs Adams's cat got really sick yesterday. Good thing I don't mind the heat, and I never get sick. I'm going for a walk later to post this to you…_

………………………………...

New York in the dog days of summer: heat exploding from every subway entrance; blast-furnace air; sidewalks shimmering greasily. The sun was relentless, and even the Hudson began to wither at the edges under its brilliance. But the usual river of pedestrians did not dry up; rather it slowly morphed into an indistinguishable lava flow of inhumanity. This level of August heat, the kind that warped tarmac and man-hole covers alike, suited few people, and any place with a semblance of air-conditioning became a shrine and sanctuary. Many a business owner silently thanked the currently unchanging climate. People languished indoors as much as they could; every breath of cool air sucked from buildings evaporated instantly as it met the fire of outside. Even the traffic seemed to be sticking to the buckling streets, as it crawled along in an angry mass. The air jammed with sirens and horns honking, shouts and profanities. Everything stuck, everything struggling to move.

But on a tree-lined avenue, dappled with welcome shadow patterns from leaves fluttering over the sidewalk, one person at least was moving swiftly. A young woman, untroubled by the weather, came flying out from a brownstone, slamming the peeling front door behind her with a crash that shook the windows in their frames, and sent a small puff of plaster dust from every ceiling. She bounded down the steps, green dress swirling, rubber soled sandals smacking on the cement.

At the bottom, she stopped on her toes, then spun round and hollered out, "Morning Mrs Adams!"

"Morning to you, you baby elephant!" A gnome-like woman, wrapped up in a print apron with a grubby scarf over her hair, retorted from the shaded basement courtyard, her voice not without warmth, "Noise your sandals make girl. Wouldn't think it to look at you. See you got some more letters to mail, huh?"

The girl flashed a pixie grin at her neighbour, as she leaned perilously over the railing, "Sure have. _You_ got anything you want mailing?"

Mrs Adams hobbled forwards in a pair of derelict slippers, and tapped a pipe out on the side of the building. Tobacco rose in a rich cloud, "Not today, honey. Now you watch yourself crossing those streets. Rate you hurl yourself along, shocks me you ain't ever been mown down."

"Always careful, Mrs Adams. Catch you later."

She waved and then was off darting down the avenue, Mercury's wings on her heels. Her short black bob danced from side to side, and the sun shone silver splashes in it as she fleeted between each tree. Gleaming then dulled. Swinging on past the sweet, hot smells of candy kiosks, she was unaware of her shadow as it stretched and then was swallowed by the thick black stripes cast by the plane trees. Unnoticed too in her haste, from the multi-coloured fan of them in her hand, one of her letters dropped and landed face down on the sidewalk. In moments, sweltering multitudes of New Yorkers drew the girl in, and the pale yellow envelope was soon grey and swamped beneath a hundred and more footprints kicking and scuffing it. Both passed out of sight.

………………………………............

"So we got ID you say, Angell?" Danny glanced up at the dark-haired detective, who was as impeccable as ever in her appearance, even in the heat that had ravaged the crispness of his white t-shirt and linen pants. He wiped a damp hand across his forehead, and blinked sweat out of his eyes.

"We do have, plenty of it. You're looking right at it." She pointed to the hand of the victim, and what was grasped in her red speckled fingers.

"Mail?" He rocked forward on his heels as the burning concrete singed through the soles of his sneakers. The scene was a vacant lot behind a delicatessen on the Upper West Side. He, Angell and Stella were grouped around the body of a young woman, whilst Mac was occupied with the story the periphery of the scene was beginning to yield. No shelter from the sun was to be had, and Danny wondered, not for the first time in the last few days, how his boss could remain untroubled by it in a black shirt. Black clothing. White-hot sun. The thought caused more perspiration to roll down his back.

Angell sighed and spoke slowly, "You send a letter, you write your name and address on it. At least that's what I do, and what you're required to do by the Postal Service. You'd know that if you've ever mailed one to anyone." She stared at him and pushed her sunglasses back over her eyes.

"_You_ write letters?"

Danny realised his voice may have been a fraction too incredulous, as Stella stepped in at this point. Even though he was well aware, as he knew she was too, that Detective Angell needed no one to defend her. However, he guessed that she felt there was no harm in a little teasing of the younger CSI. He could handle that.

"You mean you _don__'__t_, Danny?" She asked, amusement in her face. A dazzle of light leaped from her earrings as she spoke.

Danny shaded his eyes, and resented how breezy and unruffled by the heat she also looked, apart from a few tendrils of damp hair falling over her forehead.

"I talk, text and email, and that's good enough for most people. Someone wants a letter from me, they gotta _send _meone first, then I'd consider replying with one, _consider_ it anyways. Don't tell me you send 'em too, Stell?"

"Yeah Danny, I do, and receive them. Not just bills and junk that drop into my mailbox. It's a nice feeling. To have friends."

Danny looked between both women, and his eyebrows raised. So, this was how it was, two against one. If Mac had heard any of the conversation, he was saying nothing, and was certainly not defending him. But never let it be said that Danny Messer couldn't hold his own against two females. He shoved his glasses up and shifted again on his heels, "Friends, huh? You have 'em too? That's nice. So, they're who you send all these letters to?"

Angell shrugged, "School friends, college friends, older relatives. People who appreciate the more personal touch. Anyone can send a text or an email, or talk on the phone, doesn't take a scientist…"

"Hey, I resent that. You've been spending too much time with Flack, some of his so-called sense of humour's rubbed off on you. Sarcasm don't suit you, Angell."

"My humour is my own, Messer." She answered him coolly, "And I think someone else demands our attention here. You think we could get back to the vic, maybe?"

Stella's hands were also on her hips, and Danny took heed of the glitter in her eye that wasn't just from the sunlight bouncing off the concrete. Not without a smirk though. He wasn't beaten down easily.

"You got it." He eased the letters from the hand of the victim, and plied her fingers, "Rigour not yet set in, so she's been here less than three hours. Think we can be pretty certain this is the primary. Who called it in? We know who found her?"

"Yeah, the two guys over there, possible witnesses too to the event. Likely they frightened the perp away. They were doing some renovation at the back of the deli, heard a shot and ran out here. Reported seeing a man running from the scene, then an engine gunning and driving off. Not more than an hour ago. They're giving statements now." Angell motioned to two men in overalls talking to a uniformed officer. One of them glanced over, then turned away quickly as they watched, and his face, Danny saw, was white blotched with red.

"Not a pretty thing to witness, girl gunned down with a bullet to the forehead." He hefted the little heap of envelopes in his hand, then shuffled quickly through them. Blood spatter dotted the paper, drying rapidly in the heat, "Handwriting's the same, so they're all hers, presumably, unless she was just the delivery girl?"

"That's possible." Angell conceded.

Danny continued with a nod, "Whichever, sender or deliverer, _someone_ was obviously popular, or wanting to be. Got addresses here all over the country; Vermont to Oregon. Nice. Girl had a lotta pen-friends, or rich and ageing relatives I'm thinkin'."

"Not everyone writes to elderly relatives just because they want money…"

"Sure they don't…"

"Which other states?" Stella interrupted again, moving so her shadow fell over Danny, which in the present circumstances was not something he was going to complain about. Another thread of sweat irritated his chest and he squirmed in discomfort, "Take a look yourself."

She twitched them out of his hand, and frowned as she flipped through them, then looked back down at the body, "All over indeed. Huh. So I'm guessing they're not all to family, unless she comes from a family of nomads. College friends maybe, she looks to be in her mid twenties, so she would've graduated a few years back, keeps in touch with them all this way."

"So why'd they invent Facebook then?" Danny was irrepressible, but he knew as well as the two women knew, that it was a pertinent question.

"Could be all sorts of reasons for letters, either instead of, or as well as other means of communication. Not everyone uses the internet. Though, granted, if you're under fifty it's unusual not to, and I'd say the majority of the population has a cell phone." Stella mused, and struck the letters against her palm. She turned again to Angell, "Did she have any other ID on her, purse or anything else?"

"No, no purse. Only things she had other than the letters was a set of keys and a few bills and coins, twenty three dollars and fifty two cents to be exact. They were in a pocket."

"Well, we got a name and an address we can start with at least. Guess that's something." Stella studied the envelopes carefully, back and front, and then her eyebrows drew together, bafflement clear in her expression, "That's weird…"

"What?" Danny stretched himself to his feet, and tucked his hands into his pockets.

She didn't answer him immediately, and instead called over, "Mac, check this out."

Mac joined them in one stride, "There a problem, Stella?"

Danny looked between them both as Stella frowned, "One _possible_ problem with that ID, guys." Fanning the letters out, she displayed them to her colleagues, "Same handwriting on every one, but we have a different sender's name and address on each envelope."

**Thoughts? Please review and let me know, feedback much appreciated! Lily x**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Second chapter, hope you enjoy it, got quite long. Thank you very much for the reviews for the previous chapter, please continue - still love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to :D Thank you also to everyone who has put this on alert.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 2

Central Park:

Sounds moved slowly in the boiled air; voices across the park chimed in muted tones, too hot to shout, and the sound of traffic was a muffled boom. Discomfort was everywhere. The boating lake, cool and tranquil and a haven for all who wended their way there, remained placid however. Even the increased number of boats sent only the smallest ripples across a surface turned to syrup under the blazing sun. Rowing boats glided at a languorous pace, and contained many a lady of Shallott, trailing her hair and her heavy limbs over the sides for some relief, whilst her Lancelot strained red-faced at the oars, or gave up and flopped back in the bows himself. Watching the skies and the water pass. Eyes staying shaded against the sun's watery attempts to blind the unwary as it delighted in reflecting itself in constantly shifting white gold pools.

Too hot. Too still. Too hot to notice someone who would be still for ever now. The lake curled its way around the shape of a body sprawled amongst the shallows, concealed beneath willow fronds weeping over it. Water found its own level and accommodated the shape of the young man as it lapped the shore. It crept up, and licked away at a rectangle of green paper held in his stiffening fingers, creating ripples and waves of its own on the paper. Slowly, lazily, a spiral of green ink leached into the lake and was absorbed in moments, insignificant. Then a smaller pattern of dark ink marbled the surface momentarily before vanishing, whilst the black letters that had been sharp against the green envelope began to blur. The edges of the strongly drawn lines and curves swelled outwards, the water pulling the threads out of them until they began to disintegrate, and finally they disappeared into a sodden pulp.

Boats passed, and more gentle swells soothed the edges of the lake, washed over the cooling body, drawing it further down into the colder depths. Unresisting it slipped in, the remains of the letter clung around the locked fingers, and a brief swirl of red made the water wine around the head of the young man, and then it was washed away.

………………………………...

_22__nd__ August_

…_We took a walk in the park yesterday, not something I do often enough. You know how it is though - you live somewhere, you take for granted what you've got on your doorstep. You'll laugh at this, but I've never even been up to the top of the Empire State Building, not in the years I've been here. I guess if you do come out here, we could do that together? I'm telling you though, you'll adore the park most of all. So, anyways, guess I'd better finish up here. Joe's calling for me in a bit, and I'm not even close to being ready…_

………………………………...

It was the shadiest place on the street, Mrs Adams had long ago realised, and as she kept her modesty from the ardour of the sun, she sent up her usual thanks to the power above the cornflower-blue acres. Having finished her chores for the present, she had sighed down into the old canvas deckchair that kept her shape even when she had left it.

Her fearless of companion of more years than either of them could remember stalked over to his favourite place; the spot beneath the chair where the bulge of her seat just brushed the shock of fur on the top of his head. He was a magnificent cat, who was once ginger, but could now be only generously described as murky brown. His fur clothed him loosely, and his stomach had more than a wrinkle of fat. Revelling in the name of Joshua, he regarded the world magnanimously from one burnt-gold eye, and listened to its murmurings through one stumpy ear.

Life was good to him in his later years. He and Mrs Adams understood each other's wants and needs; he let her know what his were, and she provided them for him. In return he sat under her chair and chased away the occasional rat with a flick of his tail.

"Well now Joshua" Mrs Adams grunted, the chair creaking as she adjusted herself, "Seems like it's just you and me for the present. Though I expect your Rita-girl ain't gonna be long away. Maybe she's gonna be tripping back here with something sweet for your supper, to keep your stomach settled, what do you say to that, handsome boy?"

A paw swiped lazily at a beetle.

"Huh, well, we'll just wait and see then." The old woman, after rummaging in her voluminous apron retrieved a packet of tobacco strong enough to challenge even the most leather-lunged smoker and a grin deepened her wizened apple face. With the nimble fingers of much practice, she filled her pipe and wedged its rosewood stem between the gaps in her teeth. In a few moments a miasma of smoke rolled up and through the heat, and she settled back in her chair with a contented sigh.

Late morning drifted into early afternoon. The pipe had long been full of ash, when Mrs Adams's eyes blinked open blearily.

"Joshua? Where you hiding boy?" she croaked. There was no answering throaty miaow, and she felt around under her chair; nothing there either, "Where you got to, you old brown devil?" She muttered and heaved herself up from the chair and shuffled across the courtyard. At the bottom of the steps, she paused, sucking in a few deep breaths ready to tackle the ascent, having decided she knew where the cat might have got to.

In Rita's ground-floor apartment, propped open with a wad of old newspaper ever since the air-conditioning had broken a few days ago, a window provided an open invitation to a cat with few social graces. And to any passing burglars skinny enough to fit through the gap. Mrs Adams sighed and began to pull herself to the top of the stairs, panting heavily all the way.

"Get your sorry little ass outta that apartment, Joshua boy!" She gasped once she reached the top. No cat appeared, and no Rita either, so she continued, slippers flapping on her feet, scuffing across the cement and then over the threshold onto the wooden floor of the hallway.

Inside was stifling after the shady chill of her little courtyard and she leaned for a minute against the doorjamb to catch her breath. She blinked in the dimness. There was no one about and Rita's door was closed. Mrs Adams tapped it gently, and waited a moment or two for an answer. When none came, she called out, "Rita, honey? You got Joshua in there with you?"

Silence, and then the faintest sound of something scraping against wood followed by a clatter.

"Joshua Adams! I know what you're up to in there." Grabbing the door knocker, she rattled it loudly. Still no answer, so with a sigh of resignation, she fished out a ring of keys and clicked through them until she found the one she wanted. It turned in the lock with only a faint squeal before the old lady eased the door open and peered into the apartment.

"I know you're in here…"

………………………………...

Crime Scene:

At Stella's declaration, for a moment, everyone's expression matched hers in confusion. But possibilities and theories were already flashing through minds.

Danny found his voice first, "Names and addresses are all _different_? What the hell for?"

Stella herself answered him, deciding that as she had noticed the anomaly, she ought to present her theory on it, "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I can think of one possible reason…" She paused for a moment running another check on her logic.

"Don't hold back, Stell."

She narrowed her eyes at Danny, "Wasn't about to. What I think is this, this girl could be some kind of professional letter writer. She gets commissions, maybe, somehow, to write them for people. For whatever reason. Paid most likely; she writes them, then delivers them…" Trailing off, she started picking holes in her own argument, "… but I can see there might be problems with that theory." She shrugged ruefully at Mac, who smiled, and held out his hand for the letters. With a sigh, she surrendered them to him.

"It's a start." He admitted, "But you're right, I see a few problems with that theory. I'm sure there are people who might want letters writing professionally, it's a service I've seen advertised - people who aren't skilled in official letter writing employ someone to do it for them. But…" He examined the slanted writing on the envelopes, scrawled in places, and written with a pen that had seen better days, "These don't look professional. They look personal, handwritten all through, you can see the writing on the sheets through the envelope."

"Cheap envelopes too, huh? Colours suggest they're personal as well. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't be sending a bright pink envelope to my bank manager." Stella warmed to the theme, but still defended her original theory, "Could still be on a commissioned basis, an unusual one granted, but it's possible."

"It's possible." Mac agreed, and then passed over the letters to Danny, who had his hand out for them.

"I'm thinking it's about identity." He folded his arms over, keeping a grasp on the letters, "I mean, obviously, identity, but here's the thing, we're all standin' here trying to establish her identity, and failing. Now, maybe in these circumstances, knowing a name would not be a bad thing, but I can think of plenty other circumstances where knowing a name and an address _would_ be. So, this is one way to keep 'em hidden; hide the real one amongst fake ones. For whatever reason."

"Money, identity fraud, social security dodges." Stella supplied some from his list.

"Yeah, and there's others. Maybe there's someone she don't want to know where she is, so she sends a false address. Or she has a different identity for different people she writes to."

"But if that was the case, how does she get the replies? They're addresses all over town, you can't tell me someone of her age can afford to be renting or owning apartments all over the city!" Stella was incredulous, her own arms folded.

Danny sighed, and wished the heat would get out of his brain, it seemed to be very slowly melting it away inside his skull, and he had lost the energy and the cerebral matter even to pick up the trail of his thought process. His shoulders slumped in defeat, "You got me beat there, I don't know. Hate to say it, but I don't know."

Mac looked at him, and stepped in. Late summer was his least favourite time of year; passions ran high, tempers higher, and judgements were lower, "We can pick up our theories once we got the scene cleared. Let's get everything we can from here; the more we find, the more we got to test our theories on. Stella, you and Danny finish with the body, I'll continue on the periphery."

"And I'll have another go with the two witnesses." Angell nodded at them all and walked over to join the clutch of uniformed officers.

The heat as they worked was unforgiving, intractable, and even Stella wiped her hand across her forehead several times, and blew her hair out of her eyes as she and Danny processed the body and all its traces.

She groomed the parched and dusty concrete for every last speck of evidence, that she knew she would not miss, whilst Danny snapped photographs. As he did so, it felt as if every flash was a stroke of lightning inside his head. His eyes were beginning to feel scalded in their sockets, and his head was one pounding, painful throb.

"You okay, Danny?" Stella looked in concern at him as the last of the evidence they had collected was sealed away. He seemed to be sinking lower and lower towards the ground, even his hair was wilting, and his face was flushed red.

He squinted back at her, "Yeah, yeah, I'm good thanks. Sorry, Stell, just, ya know, the heat and everything. August don't agree with me."

She stood and smiled, and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder, "Just as well then we haven't got too many more days of August left, huh? Anyway, we're almost done. I'll call the coroner over and we can get back into some air-conditioning."

"Sounds good to me." He smiled weakly back at her. She opened her mouth to comment on his appearance, and then decided to wait until they were finished. They stood in silence, the heat sapping away their vitality as the body was taken away in its black coverings. Danny shifted on his heels, and looked down at his shadow as it moved with him across the concrete.

With a frown, Stella regarded the perspiration sliding down his temples, and the pain that was clearly visible even behind his glasses, "Danny, you look like hell." She announced, "Go get yourself a bottle of water before you dehydrate."

He started to protest, but she was insistent, and held out her hand, "Here, give me your kit, I'll shout Mac and put them in the car whilst you hot-foot it over to the store."

She grinned, and he handed the silver box over reluctantly, the banging in his head at such an intensity that he had no resistance left against anything.

"Funny. But thanks, okay, if you insist..."

"I do."

"Okay, fine, I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere." He took his glasses off to massage the bridge of his nose, before turning and loping away.

"Mac? You good to go?" She called over to her partner.

He looked up at her voice and smiled, "I'm done, and not before time. Any longer and you might have had to be scraping me up off the ground as I was reduced to a human puddle."

She smirked, "Serves you right for wearing all that black clothing, Mac. You're gonna have to start buying some different colour shirts."

"I hate buying shirts." He replied, and Stella's retort was on the tip of her tongue just as Angell waved and called him over, but the opportunity for some gentle teasing would wait. She patted his arm, "See you back at the car." He nodded, and she strolled over to where they had parked.

Slamming the trunk down, Stella made her way to the driver's door, pausing as she felt her cell phone vibrate. She opened it as she got in, and read the information on the screen, before glancing into the mirror to see where Danny was up to. It seemed to be taking him longer than it should.

It had taken him longer than he would have liked. Grumbling against old ladies and giggling teenagers holding him up, Danny half-jogged out of the store, gulping water as he went along, savouring its cold touch. He crossed the street and approached the car, seeing Mac out of the corner of his eye also with the same destination. He hailed him.

"Hey, Mac! You…" A yell cut him short. Stella. He and Mac took only a second to glance at each other before they started to race towards the car, suddenly an insurmountable distance away. He ran, losing the bottle of water which burst on the ground, spraying droplets that hissed and fizzed into the sidewalk.

"Stella!"

Two men were at the side of the SUV. He and Mac both pulled their guns and bellowed out, "NYPD! Stop where you are!"

Neither stopped, and they were still too far. A shot went wide. Danny heard again a furious cry from Stella, and then another shot. Not from his weapon, not from Mac's. Stella's voice stopped abruptly, and he felt his stomach drop away as he fired again, and again in blind anger and fear.

"_Stella!_" It was both his and Mac's horrified shout.

He heard metal ping, and knew he'd missed his target. And knew Mac had. More bullets ploughed into the concrete. Doors slammed, the car was moving, no sign of Stella,

"_No! _Stella, no!"

The anguish in Mac's voice lodged in Danny's mind. He had to stop the car. Had to stop it. They had Stella. It was careering towards him, he couldn't see the driver, only a face, blurred. He couldn't see anyone else. Gun held out in front of him he fired again, and heard the shriek of tyres exploding through his head. Someone yelled his name. He thought, he couldn't be sure. There was only now the car bearing down on him. A shot fired from somewhere, Mac. Mac's voice. His name. The car. A face, almost visible. Coming closer. Not stopping. In a quick-silver second it happened. Black, cold, metal weight slammed into him. For a moment he felt it everywhere, and then he was falling backwards, taking so long to fall, surrounded by sharp folds of heat and agony. Then he landed. Hard. The last thing he felt was his skull smacking onto concrete. Dazzling, blinding pain. And then blackness.

**Sorry; for cliff-hanger, damaging Danny and possible damage to Stella… Thoughts? Please review and let me know, feedback much appreciated! Lily x**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Third chapter: thank you very much for the reviews for the previous chapters, please continue - still love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to. Thank you also to everyone who has this on alert.**

**Many thanks to sarramaks and Blue Shadowdancer for their very helpful thoughts on this, as well as notesofwimsey for advice.**

**Warning**** Sorry, a lot**** of swearing in this; violent characters, violent words and actions.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 3

"Danny! _Danny_! What the hell did you think you were doing?" Mac skidded to his knees beside the younger man, frantic, hollow with shock. His brain was still struggling desperately to catch up with what had just happened. In minutes a closed crime scene had become brutally re-opened; one of his team stretched out, seriously injured on the concrete and another snatched away. Danny, Stella, gone. In minutes. Less; in the unreality of the event it had taken only seconds to reduce a team of three to only one man standing.

"Danny! Talk to me, can you hear me?" His fingers fumbled desperately for a pulse, pressed hard into Danny's neck; he finally found it, although it fluttered weakly. His chest was lifting slightly, and Mac found himself releasing the breath he had not even realised was imprisoned. He was alive. "Danny, you've got to hang in there, okay? Hang in there."

Mac kept one hand on Danny's chest, needing the evidence of his life, the other was on his radio. Feet came pounding towards him, and Angell was standing over them both, already shouting the communications that Mac knew should be coming from his own mouth, but had somehow been too slow to form into words.

"10 13 Officer down, EMS needed _now_; APB out on vehicle licence plate number 475 EPI, black SUV, officer MIA; Repeat, this is Detective Angell, backup needed at scene. We have an officer down and an officer missing, possible hostage situation, copy all units." Disjointed voices answered her. She sent more information into the static hissing radio, before clipping it back onto her belt. Brisk directions to the uniforms, already light on their toes and ready, followed. Two squad cars wailed away, bouncing over the kerb in their haste, the sound fading rapidly into the distance.

She squatted beside him, hand on his shoulder, "How is he? You got a pulse?"

"Faint. He's breathing. We have to get him out of here. We have to find Stella; there was a shot…" A shot and then silence. But Mac threw barricades up against the possibilities that were flooding him, knowing he had to focus. His team, his responsibility.

"I know. Mac, it's okay. Keep with Danny, I've got a bus on its way, and I've got patrol cars out after Stella. They won't get far; we'll get a trace on the vehicle no problem. She have her cell with her?" Angell's hand was tighter, turning him to face her.

He found a lump of words lodged in his throat. All he could see was Danny and the car breaking over him, flinging him back onto the concrete; the car that had disappeared taking Stella with it. All he could hear was the sound of the impact dinning in his head, vying with the reverberation of the gunfire; that one shot, and the sound it had stopped. Stella's voice. It was making it increasingly difficult to understand Angell's voice. Shapes of sounds twisted, and words unravelled themselves into broken chains of letters. He caught a few words that he could distinguish and repeated them, "Her cell?"

Angell asked him again, the urgency mended some of the muddle, "Yes, Mac, listen, her cell. Did Stella have her cell with her?"

"I, yes, I think so. Should have. But…"

"Call it, if she has, we'll try getting a signal."

Mac fumbled for his own cell, Danny's face tugging his eyes away from her again. The flush of the sun was draining away from him leaving chalky white skin. Blood shone on his lips. One arm was flung out to the side, fingers clenched and scraped; and his right leg was twisted at the wrong angle, almost bent double underneath him. The crimson fingers of more blood creeping out from under his matted hair began to steal into Mac; and as the shock began to clear from his mind, something else replaced it. Anger. Pure white, flash-fire anger. He recognised it, and drew it in. Held it, nurtured it and let tendrils of it grow, wind and burn into his brain. He knew with an absolute, searing certainty that he would find whoever was responsible, and he would not let himself forgive them.

He hit Stella's number; looked up at Angell, and noted with no emotion that she drew back a fraction from whatever she saw in his eyes.

"Mac?"

The ring of two phones shrilled through the blistering air; one calling, one answering. In silence, he rose to his feet and walked, forced steady steps, ram-rod straight bearing, across to the sound. In silence he picked up Stella's cell with a still-gloved hand and switched it off. And in silence he walked back to Angell.

He felt her hand again on his shoulder, "Mac, we'll find her."

He knew they would. There was no other option.

………………………………...

_21st August_

…_Not a lot happening, still hot as hell here, seems like it__'__s never going to be cool again. And of course, the air-con decides to screw up today, great. Mrs Adams offered me use of her apartment whilst they tried to fix mine though, so I took her up on that, and we ate a bowl of strawberry Jell-O and ice-cream. I saw some of what she keeps squirreled away in her closets too - boxes and boxes of letters. She showed me some of them, but didn__'__t let me read them, yet. She said they were from someone she lost touch with years ago. I have my own ideas__…_

………………………………...

The eyes of the man driving whipped from side to side; his head also in constant motion; snapping round front to back; flicking every few seconds up to the mirror then through the side windows; round to the rear window, then back through the windscreen. His hands were white-knuckle tight around the wheel, his back rigid at a right angle. Every glimpse he caught from the corner of his vision was that of a threat and a pursuer. Sirens were whining somewhere; either in his head, or behind him, he couldn't be certain. Adrenaline sent super-charged wires shrieking through his nerves, and his blood roller-coastered along every vein and artery. So much so that his heartbeat seemed to have become one continuous bass drum thud. It was beginning to go wrong, no, already _had_ gone wrong. The moment they returned to the scene it had started to go wrong. They were running out of time so fast the seconds had started to tick backwards. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and spat out bloody saliva before gingerly probing around a loosened tooth with his tongue, swearing as he touched the source of raw pain.

"You okay, man?" His companion in the back seat, as wild-eyed as himself, demanded, arching forward with his hands braced against the seats.

"Yeah." He snarled, anger fighting fear, and shot a murderous glance at the silent occupant of the passenger seat, "Bitch got a punch in first, I got a tooth working loose."

The other man scrubbed his face with his shirt violently, trying to wipe away some of the sweat that was bleeding from his hairline, and then glared at him, "We should've left her there. Why didn't you just throw her out the fucking door, man? Chrissakes, Rich, we got a freakin' cop with us now…"

Rich glanced to the side again and felt contempt ride over some of his fear. He gave a snort, "Not a lot she can do about it at the moment."

"She's a _cop_! One of their own; they're going to hunt us down and hit us with everything they _got_. What the fuck were you _thinking_?"

"What was _I_ thinking?" He hit the other man with a look of disbelief, "Dude, this is as much your problem as mine, don't fucking blame me. It happened, we'll deal with it."

"How we going to do that, huh? You're so full of ideas, you tell me."

Rich ground his teeth, and then swore again as agony skewered through his jaw. Damn the woman. Damn his idiot partner. Always him. Always him who had to be answering the questions, making the plans. Jake was going to have to begin making himself useful, before he too became a dead weight.

He spoke between clenched muscles, "She still alive? Check her out, tell me."

Jake, with an irritated grunt, pushed himself forward to look more closely at the woman slumped next to Rich; her eyes were closed, head lolling against the door. A livid bruise was visible on her forehead, with a thin laceration in the centre oozing beads of blood. Hesitantly, unexpectedly apprehensive, he stretched out his hand and shook her shoulder; but there was no response other than her arm falling over the edge of the seat, "Don't know, man. She ain't moving…"

As he glanced over, it jumped back to Rich vividly the moment they had seized the car, and encountered the female detective who had tried to stop them: unseen until almost the last moment, he had managed to grapple hold of the back of her hair and slam her head onto the wheel, intending at that point just to drag her out of the car so they could drive it away; but she had fought back, and swung the punch to his jaw that was causing him so much pain now.

They braked abruptly at a red light queue: Rich spewed out more curses, and banged the steering wheel; Jake jolted forward and his hand hit the seat as he tried to keep his balance. But he jerked it back immediately on feeling the slippery warmth of blood on his palm, and wiped it frantically with a noise of disgust on the upholstery.

Rich caught his action, and his lips peeled back in a wolfish smile, "Blood on your hands, dude? Get used to it. There'll be a lot more of it before we're done." He laughed mirthlessly at the younger man, and shook his head. The blood was on his hands too. It was his instinctive reaction after the detective's fist had connected with his jaw; hit back. So he did, still not taking her down, and then the moment he saw her reaching for her piece he had automatically pulled his own out and fired. That had stopped her, and silenced her.

He returned his attention to the roads and other vehicles as the lights changed. Another glance in the rear-view mirror still showed no pursuers. Yet. They could do this, they were almost safe. Fear dropped another notch. Just one problem to deal with. He darted another savage glance at Jake, who was staring, seemingly fixated, at his hand, still smeared red. Or maybe two problems.

Rich grinned and swerved the wheel maliciously, causing his companion to break his trance and clutch hold of the door momentarily, cursing with fury.

"Fucking watch you're going, last thing we want to do is prang the car!" Jake yelled, righting himself.

Rich gave him no answer, so he smacked the window and spat out, "Screw you, asshole."

With nothing else to do in the continuing silence, Jake turned his eyes again to the woman in the front. She still showed no signs of life. Drop by drop now, blood slid from off the seat down her fingertips, hitting the floor and adding to a silently darkening and increasing stain. Across her light-coloured top, a scarlet blood-rose unfurled, and frayed at the edges as it soaked into the material.

The implications hit him then; he punched the back of the seat and exclaimed, "_Shit_. I think you've killed her, man. That wasn't what was supposed to happen, we're not cop-killers. We only needed the evidence."

Easing his tongue tenderly round his mouth again, pressing the edges of his jaw to test how much it hurt, Rich decided darkly that his teeth felt as if they had been rattled almost out of their sockets. The woman had socked him with a fist of iron, and he heard Jake's words with satisfaction, "Who says we're not? Serve her right anyhow. Lucky my jaw ain't broken, the punch she gave me. So we killed her. Big deal."

Jake spluttered out, "_We_? Man, _you__'__re_ the one who shot her, I ain't taking the fall for that. And if we're driving round with a dead cop in the car, I call that a freaking big deal of trouble." Jake threw himself back, raked his hands down his face, and stared at the roof of the car, "Ah, _hell_. Fucking great. Add that to the one we ran over who didn't look like he'd be getting up any time soon, that's one long stretch in Sing-Sing. I'm telling you, Rich, I am _not _going down for this, and I'm not driving round with her much longer, we got to get rid of her."

"We're not _going_ to be driving round much longer dude. They'll have a trace out on us already, surprised we ain't seen anyone yet. We get our asses to safety and we destroy everything. Once we got that done, we head back to TJ's. And let me tell _you_, the plan is neither of us going down."

"So what _is_ the plan? What we going to do, huh? You think TJ's going to be happy about this?" Jake leaned forward again, arms hanging down over the seats and Rich's lips thinned as he looked at him in the mirror. Taking the younger man along with him, was something he was regretting. He was proving to be a burden rather than an asset, panicking when they returned to the scene, and slowing them down; it was his fault they had not got away cleanly. His, and the woman's. If she hadn't struggled, he wouldn't have had to have done what he did.

At that moment Rich felt the barely contained anger boiling acidly in his stomach, bubble over, and he seethed, "You want a plan, huh? _You_ give me one, dude. I'm only driving the freaking car!"

"Yeah? Well, try driving it in a straight line before we start getting conspicuous. Think you can manage that?" Jake blew out in uncharacteristic anger at his friend.

Nerves. Or weakness. Rich knew him capable of both. And knew that he had to assert his power again.

He spat again out of the side of his mouth, and smashed his hand onto the dashboard, "_Shut the hell up,_ before I do to _you_ what I did to _her_, got it?"

He remembered the rush of adrenaline kicking in at the scene, and recalled the sequence of events in a Technicolor montage; heaving her body across, scrambling into the driver's seat himself; the shouts and bullets of the two men pursuing; screaming for Jake to get in the back before they screeched away; more shots fired at them; the man leaping in front of the car to stop them. But he hadn't stopped, couldn't stop, didn't want to stop, and after slewing around on the concrete after the impact, he had wrestled back control of the steering and driven on with no other thought.

It was the moment they made their first mistake. The moment he had not pulled the woman out of the car. Jake was right, although there was no way in hell he was going to tell him that; they should have left her at the scene. Instead, here they were now; left with her still to deal with, as well as the car and the evidence. However, he realised, and a smile crawled over his features, a body was easy enough to dispose of along with a car and a trunk full of evidence. There were ways and places.

Jake was sulking in the back: one arm flung along the edge of the window; legs spread wide; other hand drumming rhythms on the denim covering his thin legs whilst his head nodded along to it. For now, Rich decided reluctantly, he still needed him, if they were going to pull this off.

"Hey," Rich called back to him, calmer now, "Crack a smile, dude. I figured out a plan. How does a little ride back out of town grab you?"

"Yeah?" Sulking seemed to be forgotten suddenly, as Jake turned his head from the passing streets, and leant his elbows on his knees, "What you got in mind? We need someplace out the way."

Rich gave a short laugh, "Got just the place. I'm seeing a nice patch of waste ground back up in Harlem, maybe some deep water, maybe something else. What you say to that, huh? You with me?"

He waited for Jake's eager agreement, and was not disappointed.

"Oh yeah. Sounds good, man, yeah. Get over there, get rid of everything. Then we tell TJ. Think he'll be happy about this?"

They could not afford for TJ to be unhappy, Rich knew to his previous cost. This had to work. But his reply to Jake did not elaborate on this, and was a brief, "Yeah, you got it."

Face closing over, muscles and skin unfolding, straightening out and shutting his thoughts away, Rich stepped hard on the gas. The car growled as it leaped forwards through the light afternoon traffic. Weaving in and out it left no trace; and no one seemed to notice just another black SUV on the streets.

**I apologise for the swearing and violence, but I wanted to portray the two characters as realistically as possible. Please review and let me know what you think, feedback much appreciated. Lily x**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Fourth chapter: thank you very much for the reviews for the previous chapters, please continue - still love to know what you think! All very welcome, and always replied to. Thank you also to everyone who has this on alert.**

**Thanks to sarramaks for a read through and fact check**

Lost Letters: Chapter 4

"You got yourself a young man then, girl?" The old lady opened the conversation with Lindsay, who interpreted a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. She could not help but think that those eyes resembled beads of amber, as they caught a wink of light from the early afternoon sun. Sun that filtered in through dusty windows, and cast lacy patterns over the room and its many contents.

Lindsay shifted slightly in her seat, trying to avoid what felt to be a loose spring underneath; and refused to look at the young detective accompanying her, who failed to conceal a smirk.

There seemed to be no avoidance of the old lady's question; something about her gaze drew out answers and the CSI replied, "Well, yes, there is, someone. A young man, yes, ah, but, Mrs Adams, that's not really… Can you tell us what exactly happened earlier? Then Detective Markham and I can make a start on the investigation and I can check for fingerprints and DNA, and so on..."

_Oh, smoothly done, Lindsay…_

The old lady chortled and then twinkled at Markham, who had remained standing, "And what about a good looking young man like yourself, huh? Don't you be telling me you ain't got a pretty young lady." She pulled a pipe out from her apron and the amber eyes glittered, "Or a handsome young man is it too?"

Lindsay's eyebrows quirked and Markham was stunned into silence, the smirk vanishing from his face. Mrs Adams grinned delightedly, "Oh don't look like that, boy. I'm not so behind the times. Each to his or her own. So, you got yourself someone?"

Lindsay grinned at the young man as he shifted his feet, dug his hands into his pockets and looked anywhere but at her, "Young man, I uh, got a young man. In a manner of speaking. That is, we're kind of, but we're well, uh... So, you remember what you saw then, Mrs Adams?"

Her mirth spilled over into a laugh as rich as old sherry, "I do indeed. I may be old in years and body, but I ain't old in mind, boy. Nothing wrong with my memory. Happened as I told it when I phoned your people - I'd been looking for my Joshua…"

"Joshua?" Lindsay couldn't help interrupting, and received a sharp glare from the old lady, "Sorry…"

Mrs Adams harrumphed, "Don't appreciate being interrupted girl, but appreciate the apology. Joshua is _my_ young man. Guess he ain't so young now though, got nearly as many years on his fur as I have."

Lindsay felt reality slipping away from her, and the question was out of her mouth before she could stop it, "_Fur_?"

The answer came stalking into the room, head high, tail higher. Markham jumped back a few steps, "Whoa! A cat? Joshua is a _cat_? Mrs Adams, ma'am, you have my apologies, but I got to tell you, I got allergies and cats ain't good for me…" Lindsay was immediately reminded of someone she knew well, and wondered if pet allergy was a trait amongst the male detectives in robbery as well as homicide.

The full-beam glare of Mrs Adams's eyes was focused on Markham as his words stumbled out, "…Even such a fine and handsome cat as, uh, Joshua. Sorry, you're going to have to excuse me for a moment."

He fled from the room, and Lindsay heard the sound of violent sneezing and coughing. She gave Mrs Adams a pained smile. A few moments later and a red-eyed and nosed Markham reappeared, a handkerchief almost the size of a table cloth in his hands. Mrs Adams grumbled herself up out of the velvet covered armchair that she was holding court in, and scooped up her cat who suffered the action with a mew of protest. She carried him through the front door and closed him out in the basement yard.

"There now, he's exiled. So you can sit yourself down, and listen properly to what I got to tell you."

"I'm all ears." Markham eased his long and skinny legs into a low and narrow armchair and sat folded almost in half, his notebook perched on his knees. Lindsay looked away, and tried to regain her composure; Markham, in a light grey suit, with unruly black hair and an aquiline nose, reminded her suddenly of a crane fly, and she was trying desperately to banish the image from her mind before an inappropriate burst of laughter escaped her.

This was one of the most interesting calls she had been on in some time. An unusual burglary in Harlem, called in by the tiniest old lady she had ever met. Tiny in stature, however, as they discovered within minutes of their arrival, most definitely did not mean tiny in spirit and personality. She required not deference or sympathy, but respect; and was, Lindsay realised, the kind of woman who had lived on the harder side of life, and had no doubt won battles that would have defeated many. It struck anger into her that such a lady had suffered the ignominy of an attempted burglary and assault, and Mrs Adams received both Lindsay's and Markham's undivided respect and attention.

The suspect had knocked the old lady over and threatened her with a knife, hence Lindsay's presence: Mac had directed her there on the way out to his scene with Stella and Danny. There also seemed to be some mystery over what exactly had been stolen, and why. She was impatient to know more, but realised that the story would tell itself, and there would be no rushing the storyteller. Lindsay asked her now gently, "You said you surprised someone?"

"That I did. Only left my courtyard for no more than ten minutes I reckon it to be. Heard noises from upstairs, coming from Rita's apartment, and knew that Joshua, the old devil, had snuck his way in there. Silly girl had left her window open - got no air con at the moment - and he'd made his way in. Gets himself in all right, but come to getting out again, and he's helpless. Getting older now's his trouble. Comes to us all. Well then, I climbed up the stairs and let myself into her place."

The question must have been obvious in Lindsay's expression, as the old lady nodded, "Yes, I got a key to her apartment, and she got one to mine. We keep an eye out for each other, as it should be. Girl's a good neighbour to an old lady, and she and Joshua have an understanding. He's in and out of her place almost as much as he is his own." She paused for a moment, and frowned at a clock over the front door, ticking as wearily as the day felt.

"Been out a good while today, Rita, went to mail a bunch of letters." She lifted her hands, "But expect she's met up with a group of her acquaintances; seems to have a whole bunch of 'em, always got people knocking at her door." Lindsay nodded in understanding, but felt frustration at the removal of a potential witness that this meant. However, they could always, if necessary, arrange another visit to the absent Rita.

Mrs Adams continued, "So anyways, there he was as expected, knocking over dishes off of her sink. I scolded him good and proper and shooed him out. Then made my way back down the steps to find a boy sneaking his way out of my own front door. I yelled out of course, and he shoots up the steps towards me as if a pack of demons were after him." She paused for a moment, and closed her eyes, "Shoved past me, knocked me flying and when I tried to get up, I found a knife inches from my face. Thought that was my last moment on earth, and the good Lord had decided to call me up right there and then, but something stopped him. He vaulted right up over the railings and was off barrelling down the street. No way I could've caught him."

"Certainly not!" Lindsay exclaimed, and then hastily added, "Not that I don't think you're capable, Mrs Adams, but we'd never recommend chasing after a suspect yourself - especially one that was armed, and a panicked suspect is always a dangerous thing for anyone to tackle."

"You get a good look at him?" She felt a twinge of sympathy for Markham, nasal in tone, and dabbing at his nose and eyes.

"A fair look. Boy was younger than you, early twenties I'd say. Hair spiked up all over his head, and blonde that looked bleached to me. Wearing a white shirt and dark pants. Seemed to have a lot of chains and such around his neck. That's about all I can tell you on that, he was off too quick for me to see much more. And the knife kind of took my attention." She finished regretfully, and twisted her gnarled, brown hands together.

"No, no, that's very helpful, you did a good job there, Mrs Adams. It's more than we often get." Lindsay reassured her as Markham took down the details.

"Have you established what was taken, ma'am?" Markham asked next. Lindsay smiled to herself as she noted also that his cheeks were still somewhat pinker than normal. He ran a finger round his collar, and she wondered if he was regretting the suit and tie. Another similarity to a certain homicide detective she decided, and wondered idly if he and Flack traded wardrobe tips as well as allergy medications.

"He took no money or what you'd ordinarily call valuables if that's what you're meaning. I checked, and my purse ain't missing, neither's my ma's and grand mamma's pearl necklaces."

"But he did take something? Something that was valuable to _you_?" Lindsay prompted, and watched the old lady sag a little into the sun-faded red velvet, her face drooping.

"Yes. Yes, he did. He took something precious, and I'm finding that hard to forgive. He carried off a box of my letters. Kept 'em inside my closet, so I reckon he knew where to look for 'em. And I know what you might be thinking, girl. Old lady, being sentimental about a box full of letters, maybe from an old long-lost sweetheart. Well, part of that would be right, but only part."

The pipe that had been resting in Mrs Adam's lap was now taken up, and hands that trembled only a little, fumbled and produced a packet of tobacco from her apron.

Lindsay felt the seat she was perched on the edge, of begin to prickle against the back of her knees, and a sting of perspiration in the creases of her skin. The window vent turned listlessly; the air inside the cluttered apartment was still and heavy, "The letters were important, Mrs Adams?"

Eyes that had been amber now gleamed like tiger's eye gems, "Why else do you think I insisted on you coming out? Those letters girl, are more important than you can imagine. There are lives inside those words and papers; and deaths if they're not found."

Silence swallowed Lindsay's voice.

………………………………...

_20th August_

…_Still hot. I'm getting kind of sick of waking up in the morning and seeing the sun, I'm telling you. I guess I shouldn't complain though. The cold doesn't suit me either, and New York in winter is not something to be taken lightly. I'm complaining then as well, of the cold and my windows freezing up on the inside. But the snow though; I never get tired of that. Everything still and white and smothered. It covers all the ugliness, kind of hides it away. Until it melts that is. You can't hide anything then. There's nothing to hide the ugliness this time of year either…_

………………………………...

Central Park:

Ripples glided over the surface of the lake, almost unnoticed in the breathless afternoon. The hottest, highest point of the day. Here in the park, in the middle of the lake, time was at a standstill. Boats and their cargoes seemed to slide along outside of normal temporal lines, and the water drew them into its own dimensions.

A couple drifting with no other previous thoughts than themselves, passed under a bridge and found themselves away from the main body of water and on a collision course with the overhung bank. They started up, and grabbed for forgotten oars. But something else had taken on the shape of the water and was distorting the serenity of the mirror they had been admiring each other in. White and gleaming, raised with no hope of any Excalibur to be flung its way, a hand rose above the surface, beckoning helplessly in the sway of the wake. Oars clattered against wood, and clunked into the water, and a scream ripped through the tranquillity.

………………………………...

Markham followed her closely, carrying two boxes of letters that Mrs Adams had surrendered reluctantly, and only after extorting promises from Lindsay that she hoped she would be able to keep regarding their swift return. Lindsay herself balanced another two under one arm whilst she rummaged for her car keys, reminding herself at the same time that as soon as she got back to the lab, she needed to replace the battery in her radio. She felt incomplete without it, and Markham, to her added mortification, had left his in his car; admitting this with a discomfited expression himself as they had met at Mrs Adams's front door.

"You think the old lady's for real?" Markham asked, recovered now from his streaming eyes and nose. He grabbed and saved one of her boxes as it wobbled precariously, "All she was saying about what's in here?"

"I don't know." Lindsay replied, her eyes inside her purse, "Really I don't know what to think, yet. But I'm not going to be the one that ignores a warning like that. I'm going to have to discuss this with Mac, Stella too, and make a start on everything we found." She sighed and ducked her head, "Not that I found _much_; a couple of partials on the door frame was as good as it got, but whatever's in these boxes will hopefully give us more of a clue…"

Still rooting about in the depths of a purse that seemed to have swallowed her keys, Lindsay stepped off the kerb and onto the street. The next thing she knew, there was a rush of air and metal millimetres from her body, and Markham's hand was yanking her back against the side of her car.

"What the hell…?" She gasped, and stared away down the street at the disappearing vehicle that had almost flattened her. Too stunned to notice much more than it being a black SUV, the same make as they used themselves, she turned on less than solid legs to Markham, whose face was as pale as her own felt, "What the hell were they _doing_? You get a better look at the driver, or the licence plate than I did? I caught 475 and an E, missed the last two letters for certain, think it was a P and an I." She was disappointed with herself, for failing to notice the details.

Markham shook his head, "For a detective, I'm embarrassed to say this, but no, I didn't, same as you, but yeah, think the last letter was an I. Looked like a guy driving, black SUV, no more than that. I was kind of occupied with preventing you from becoming another traffic statistic. You okay?"

Taking a deep breath, releasing it slowly, and feeling her heart begin to slow its battering against her ribs, Lindsay was able to reply cautiously, "Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I _think_. Thank you, guess I should have looked more carefully where I was going hey?"

But Markham shook his head, and stared away in the direction the vehicle had vanished amongst the slower-moving traffic, "No, wasn't your fault. Guy swerved the wheel, that was as much as I saw, don't think it was aimed at you particularly, guess he was avoiding something, but he veered right over."

Lindsay stared at her hands and could not stop them shaking. Too close. If she had chosen the second earlier to step out, or if Markham had chosen a second later to grab hold of her, then she would not be standing where she was now. Seconds was all it took for lives to change or disappear. The sun burning the back of her neck and head was suddenly more welcome, and the sidewalk's heat rising from under her feet, a more solid comfort than it had been moments before.

"Sure you're okay, Detective Monroe?"

She turned with a smile to Markham's concerned features, "Really, I'm fine, thank you. Just - just a little shaken I guess."

"Think we ought to call it in?"

For a moment Lindsay hesitated; something stirred a murmur in the back of her mind, something that she knew she should know. Something about the car. But she couldn't define it and mould it into a substantial answer, and so she replied to Markham with a shake of her head, "No, no, I don't think we need to. It was probably just an accident; they slipped, or swerved to avoid something as you say. And fast as they were going, I _don't_ think it was breaking the limit. I'm okay, no one was hurt."

Markham nodded, and Lindsay gave him an insubstantial smile; still not entirely convinced by her own arguments, but wanting suddenly to return to the lab and begin what she found security in; investigation of the evidence. In this case, evidence contained in the four cardboard boxes of correspondence they held.

With few further words, only the perfunctory ones necessary for continuation of the case, they parted: Markham striding down the street to his own car, and Lindsay turning off back into the city in hers. She pulled into the traffic and became just another amongst many.

**Sorry to keep you hanging on for the fate of certain characters… Reviews help me write more, please send some! Hope to get the next chapter up in a couple of days. Thanks, Lily x**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Fifth chapter: thank you very much for all previous reviews, please continue - still love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to. Thank you also to everyone who has this on alert. NB Some swearing ahead.**

**Thank you to Blue Shadowdancer for a read-through**

Lost Letters: Chapter 5

_19th August_

…_Kind of a funny thing happened today, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I was going out to the store, and saw smoke drifting out of Mrs Adams's front window. When I knocked, she wouldn't open the door fully, just stuck her head round. I asked if everything was okay, trying to get a peek over her shoulder, and said I'd seen smoke and smelled burning. All she'd say was that she'd had a tidy out, and this was the best way to get rid of some things she no longer wanted or needed. I did offer to take anything to the thrift store for her, but she refused, and closed the door…_

………………………………...

Almost as soon as she pulled out, Lindsay found herself waiting for a red light. And found her attention wandering back to a few minutes earlier, and the disaster she had been a filament away from. Too close. She shivered. The lights were in no hurry to change, but her vision was not on the cars in front or behind her; it had elided to memory.

She saw the dusty gleam of the black car as it hurtled past her… the black SUV… the same make they used… the licence plate… the letters of the licence plate… the same make… the same letters…

"Oh God…"

She knew then. She _knew. _It _was_ the same car. Their car. The same she had seen a few hours ago as Mac drove away in it, accompanied by Stella and Danny. _Danny_. Except that when it nearly hit her, it had not been any of them driving. Why would they not be? Because something was wrong. Something had to be very wrong. But she had no radio, so she wouldn't know…

"_Shit!"_

A furious blast of honking jerked her back to her present surroundings. Lindsay grabbed the wheel and with clenched jaw, ignoring the outraged yells and gesticulations from other drivers, she swung over to the shaded side of the street. She had to contact someone. Mac preferably. After wrenching on the handbrake, she tipped up her purse and scrabbled for her phone.

………………………………..

"Keep your eyes out the back window if you want me concentrating on the road. Think you can manage that?" Rich shot over his shoulder to his partner, feeling his muscles and nerves winding up again. It was too good to be true that no one seemed to be following them. Seemed. They were still a long way from safety. The car bounced over rumples in the road; heat had turned the tarmac into liquorice with pustules of treacle-oil bubbling across the surface, and every jolt enraged him further.

"Whatever." Jake shoved a finger up at him, but corkscrewed himself round to stare out of the back window, "Can't see no one, think we're okay. How much further, and what we going to do with _her_?" He untwisted, and jerked his head at the motionless woman in the front seat.

Rich kept his eyes straight ahead, and let his mind wander over an unfolding plan. He knew exactly what he was going to do. And for now, he was keeping the knowledge to himself, "Not much further. Stop screwing around asshole, and keep your eyes out back."

Jake, out of verbal insults for the present, contented himself with another obscene gesture before returning to the street running away behind them.

………………………………...

"Come on, come on, _dammit_…" The phone was the last thing to shake out of the purse, of course. Cursing herself, angry and miserable for the lifeless radio battery, she saw with a plunging sensation that she had missed calls scrolling all the way down the screen from Hawkes. None from Mac, Stella or Danny.

"Oh no, no, _no_…" Feeling heat scorching her nerves, and with fingers slipping on the buttons, she dialled Hawkes's number. It rang. She stared round at the street ahead and the sidewalk, wild-eyed, feeling a weight of panic and near-tears starting to press on her chest. He answered and she nearly sobbed in relief, "Hawkes, oh thank…"

There was also relief, and something else in his voice, "Lindsay, I've been trying…"

"To reach me, I know, listen, please, tell me everything's all right, because I've seen something that makes me think it's not. And I know, I know, I'm sorry, my radio, the battery's dead. But I was almost run over, and the car was… it was…"

She had to stop and steal her breath back.

Hawkes, lacking his usual calming vocals_, _was urgent, "Lindsay, something happened at Mac's scene. We don't know all the details yet, but it seems two of the perps came back to the scene, likely after the evidence. They took Stella, in the car. There's an APB out on it, and…"

Lindsay's hand flew to her throat, trying to keep air within, "Oh God, Stella, was she hurt? _Shit, _my radio, I didn't…"

"We don't know, Lindsay, we don't know anymore yet. But forget the radio, you said you saw something. _Did you see the car? _Licence plate is 475 EPI, was that the one you saw?"

Her voice had almost shrunk to nothing, "Yes. Yes, I saw it. Oh God, Hawkes, I didn't call it in…"

……………………………..

"Still can't see no one. Congrats, man, looks like we got away with it." Jake rebounded to his preferred position, hanging over the front seats. Although it did not escape Rich that he leaned closer to him, avoiding as much as possible the body of the female detective, and the blood welling around her; its metallic tang, the smell of leather upholstery and the fear sweating off Jake drenched the atmosphere. The car was sweltering; there having been no time to search for the air-conditioning, and Rich felt lines of perspiration drawing down his arms making him jerk in irritation.

Glancing over at the woman, he frowned: for a moment he thought he had seen the slightest twitch of her fingers, "Hey, dude, you see her move then?"

Jake looked at him, then at the woman, and back to him; a flame of fear in his eyes, "You said she was dead."

"No, _you_ said she was. You get that wrong? Don't like mistakes, dude, you better check again."

Warily, Jake shuffled across closer to her, and Rich grinned at his discomfort. "Maybe you ought to check for a pulse?"

The younger man seemed to become thinner, trying to shrink away from the deed, "Fuck you."

Rich returned him a filthy look, and after a moment, Jake dropped his own glare and put his hand out again to her shoulder, a little closer to her neck. He held it there for a second and then shook his head, "Can't feel nothing, man." His eyes swung away as he answered, and Rich's thoughts distilled a little more venom.

"Sure about that? You'd better be. 'Cause I can't afford you to be wrong, dude, know what I'm saying? We get where we're going and I find you've made a mistake, or lied to me, and I ain't going to be real happy about that. You get me?"

"I get it, okay? I told you, I felt nothing." Jake slouched back in his seat, but his eyes darted back every few seconds to their unwelcome passenger. Rich, even with his eyes stripping down the streets for every possible route to escape if necessary, did not fail to notice.

………………………………

"_When? _When did you see it? Lindsay, just tell me when and where, and where you are now." Hawkes's words were tightly spoken, Lindsay's chest was tighter though as she fought to keep breathing; the horror of what she had just been told stabbing her like hot needles.

_Keep talking, give the information, keep talking…_

"Five minutes ago, no more than that, about two hundred yards from where I am now. I'm in the Upper West Side…" People drifted past the window along the sidewalk, their forms and shadows mingling into myriads. No one looked at her as they passed.

"You got a street?"

She craned her head out of the window and ran off to Hawkes the street and avenue name and number she could just make out from her position. In the background to her rapid breathing, she heard him calling out to someone, repeating her information. In the gap of words, she felt again the static and heat of the black metal as it almost scalded her skin, smelled the exhaust as it screamed past her. So close. And she had not called it in. She had not done what would have helped Stella. The tears came then, hot, burning hot, down flushed cheeks.

"Lindsay?"

"Sheldon, I'm so sorry…"

But he was talking over her again, in that insistent, taut voice, "Lindsay, don't apologise again. You weren't to know. It happens, okay? Batteries die… it's just… just one of those things. And you were shaken, I'm guessing. You have a near miss, you don't think clearly straight after. But you've called it now, and I've got it out there, it's okay. Now listen…"

The tears were wiped away fiercely, "I'm going after it." There had to be something she could do now. Something to absolve what she was feeling and what she had not done earlier. Pulling her seatbelt on, heat pulsed through her as everything began to process. There had to have been a struggle for Stella to have been taken; she knew there was no way the CSI would simply let herself and a car full of evidence be driven away. A struggle Stella had to have lost; at a price unknown.

_And they drove right past me…_

"I can at least try and catch it up…"

Hawkes's voice lost some of its control, "You've got no radio or back-up!"

"Then send some. Listen, Hawkes, I'm not going to do anything stupid…"

Handbrake off, car in reverse, phone flicked onto speaker. "Keep the line open, and I'll keep talking as I'm going."

"You don't need to do anymore, and you don't need to jeopardise yourself as well. We got patrol cars out, they're heading towards you now…"

"But I'm closer…" Spinning the wheel, and twisting her head to see all directions, she pulled out and thrust her way back into the shackles of traffic. Every car was an obstacle. None of them the right one, but all of them seemed to conceal just in front, just out of reach, the one she wanted. Black metal was in the corner of her eye, every way she turned.

"Lindsay, you're on your own and risking your safety needlessly!"

She heard Hawkes's frustration with a twinge of guilt, but the need to do something overrode it, "If back-up and patrol cars are on their way, then I won't be for long."

"Listen to me, Lindsay, please." His voice, small and metallic from the seat where she had tossed the phone, was a distraction in the background. Lindsay drove on, her eyes straining against the sun's glare, every car black at first glance.

"You got that back-up coming?" Even as she said the words, the faint moan of sirens caught her ear. In seconds she saw them behind her, cutting through the traffic chains then howling past. "Got the back-up, I'm right behind."

………………………………...

Ears attuned to the faintest sound of danger, Rich heard the sirens first, and a second later, Jake confirmed, "_Fuck! _Man, they found us. You're going to have to bust this car's ass. I told…"

Rich flicked his head round like a viper and the words shrivelled away from the younger man, "Finish that sentence, and it'll be the last one you ever do."

Jakes mouth snapped shut, and he stiffened to attention in the back.

"Good, now, try being useful to me, and keep looking out the freakin' back window. We're getting out of this."

Although, he considered with a flash in his eye, at this moment 'we' was still debatable. Sun burned through the windscreen in a fiery dazzle; blood glistened on the woman's skin, and on her hand; a hand that seemed not quite as lifeless as it had been. Which would certainly make things more interesting.

He laughed suddenly and spun the wheel through his hands; the squeals of startled cars and drivers sounding their horns was a pleasant sound. The non-existence of sunlight in a side street between towering buildings, lured him; and the car slithered into it. Scattering pedestrians, it once more ceased to be.

………………………………...

_Right behind you, you bastards…_

Lindsay hardened her face and stepped on the gas.

But Hawkes's voice rose, and she gave him a little more attention, _"Lindsay, _I need you to come back here. You driving off on your own, putting yourself at risk, is not going to help anyone, least of all Stella. Or Danny."

There was silence, and Lindsay felt the heat sap away from her. Her grip on the wheel weakened, and she whispered, "What do you mean? What else happened? What's happened to Danny?"

"Lindsay, please, wherever you are just pull over. I can't tell you like this."

It was suddenly almost impossible to keep hold of the wheel, but she held onto it as to her sanity, and dragged herself out of the traffic, stopping alongside an empty strip of kerb. At the second attempt she got the handbrake to hold. The cell-phone was almost too heavy to hold as she picked it up and asked for news she did not want to hear, "I've stopped, Sheldon. You can tell me. What else? _What's happened to Danny?_"

………………………………...

Having taken far longer than it should have, to Mac's mind, the ambulance pulled alongside. Angell greeted the flustered paramedics briskly, and in no more words than necessary, ran them through what had happened.

Mac moved aside as they knelt beside Danny and set to work, helping him, he knew; but all he could see was a man who trusted his life with him, losing that life underneath their hands and equipment. It wasn't Danny lying there. It wasn't Danny with spread-eagled arms and legs, broken body, and skin whiter than the boiled away sky. It was the action of two men he would not allow himself to think of as human. They had taken from him Danny's impetuous bravery, and they had taken Stella's vibrant presence. That they might have taken her life, he could not, and would not let his mind anywhere near to thinking.

Angell approached him, radio in her hand.

"Anything?" Mac demanded, his own voice sounding like it was coming from a radio inside his head, the words coming out along wavelengths and sound bands, bypassing reality. The reek of blood and heat assaulted him.

She gave him a careful look, "They had a sighting, a mile or so from here. It gave patrol cars the slip, but they've got a chopper out after it now, Mac. They'll find the car."

Something buzzed and hissed in his head, words spat forth, "You think I give a damn about the _car_? It's a piece of metal, it doesn't matter. If it comes to it, I don't give a damn about the evidence either. I can live without both. They've got one of my CSIs. They've got _Stella_. That's _who_ we need to find, not _what_."

Angell met the bullet-hail unflinching, "I know. They'll find _her_, Mac. I'm aware of the priority. It goes without saying who the search is for."

His fists were clenched, trying to hold onto the smithereens of control, "I'm responsible…"

One of the paramedics called out their readiness to depart, and the burst of sound was like the gunshot again, blowing apart the air. There was no sun left in the sky now; just blank, sickening heat. And absence.

Angell took his arm, "Yes, you are, for both of them, which means you're going to go with Danny now, Mac, okay? They're ready to take him. Get him to the hospital safely, and then we go from there." She guided him a step towards the back of the ambulance, "You're in contact with everything that's happening, you can't do anything else right at this moment, but you need to be assured that everything that _can_ be done _is_ being done to find Stella."

_In contact… be assured… everything that can be done… _

How often had he used those words himself? As had Stella. For the first time the true, terrible barrenness of them ate away at his heart. As he climbed up into the back of the ambulance and heard the doors slam shut, the anger that was nestling inside sent out another tendril, growing and filling the blasted space within him. He did nothing to stop it.

The ambulance drove away and Angell stood and watched it before putting her phone to her ear. She had never seen Mac so desolate. Something behind his eyes had vanished, but had been replaced by something she did not like. The voice she had been wanting answered her call, and she breathed in thankfully, "Flack? It's Angell. Listen, you need to go see Mac. He's gone with Danny to Trinity. He's on his own there, and I don't think he should be. Can you do that? I'll talk to you more soon as I can."

She had gauged correctly. There was barely a pause before he answered, "I'm on my way. You okay?"

"Doing okay. Thanks, Don. We'll catch up later."

"Later."

His voice was a comfort, as was the knowledge that there would be a later with him. She clicked the phone off, and marched back to her own car; every atom of her repeating the mantra that Danny would pull through and they would find Stella. And find her alive.

**More of Flack and the others next chapter. Please review and let me know what you think, it helps me write more. I also have a one-shot posted yesterday, 'Perfect Symmetry', reviews for that also happily accepted. Sorry, I shamelessly love reviews XD**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Sixth chapter: thank you very much for all previous reviews, please continue - still love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to. Thank you also to everyone who has this on alert. NB Small amount of swearing ahead.**

**Thank you to sarramaks for reading this, and to my friends Naomi and Stuart for putting up with my plot anguishes, and supplying help with coffee :D**

Lost Letters: Chapter 6

_18th August_

…_So I ended up down by the river again, I think my feet just led me there. Does that ever happen to you? Sometimes I get to a place, and I don't even remember the journey there. Good thing I wasn't driving I guess. But I think I'd meant to go there. It was peaceful, no one else around, just me. Well, at first so I thought, but then I saw in the distance a man in the entrance to one of the old tumble-down buildings, I reckon there's maybe a couple of vagrants shelter there, hope no one comes and moves them on, there's no harm done them being there. The guy I saw didn't look to be out for any sort of trouble, just watched me and then disappeared when I waved at him…_

The air was stifling and crawling, and Flack felt his limbs as if they moved through syrupy heat. It lay thick, sticky and heavy over everything and everyone. He had arrived at the hospital in time to see Danny rushed away into the Emergency Room, and to find Mac with battle-shocked eyes, and a stance that told the detective that any wrong word or movement and he would be facing a human grenade.

They were in a side room of the hospital now using minutes they didn't have, waiting for any more news of Danny or Stella. But radios held their silence, and corridors remained just staring walls and listening floors. Empty. No words.

"I almost lost it, Don." Mac sat with his head pressed against the wall, his hands placed exactly on his knees. Flack, leaned against the door, watched him carefully; running his mind through all the possible responses he could give to his friend, his colleague and the man with whom he had had some of the bitterest disagreements of his career. But Mac was also at this moment simply a man who looked broken and exhausted.

Flack moved and sat himself down next to him, matching his posture, "But you didn't. Mac Taylor losing it? Come on, it doesn't happen. Damn, Mac, you had reason enough to come a little loose at the seams." He shook his head and let out a whoosh of air; still fighting to accept what had happened himself.

How? _How? _Danny, _and _Stella_… _

Flack continued, "I mean, how the hell do you _really_ react in a situation like that? And yeah, I know; you got what your training tells you to do, you know what you're _supposed_ to do, but in the event it's always your gut kicking in, and you can't do nothing else but what it tells you to. Angell told me, the speed it all happened, she didn't even have time to pull her own piece out, and believe me, she ain't slow on the draw. Honestly, Mac, you can't beat yourself up over how you reacted in the aftermath. You did what you had to, you and Jess. You made the calls, you stayed with Danny, you sent who needed to go out after Stella. You couldn't have done anything else differently."

Eyes dulled to only a shade darker grey than the skin they hid in, faced him and Flack saw through them a rare glimpse of what he could only guess Mac was feeling, and suffering.

"All the training, all the years I spent in the marines, and in a few minutes, all that's gone. I'm there on my knees next to one of my team who's just thrown himself in front of a car, which is driving off with another of my team inside, my partner, and I can't even get the call out before someone else has to do it for me." His fists were clenched on his knees and the bitter words were prising themselves out of his tightened lips.

Flack drew a breath in and prayed for wisdom, knowing that what he said could turn the knife edge that Mac was holding to himself, "Mac, I don't know what I can say that's going to help at this point, but you know damn well you're the last person who needs a reminder of his responsibility. Danny for a start knew what he was doing, and _he_ knew damn well that throwing himself in front of a car, no matter what the circumstances was a dumb ass thing to do. And I ain't going to hesitate to tell him so when he wakes up. That was entirely _his _responsibility. You knew what you had to do, and would have done it had Angell been there or not. You got a helping hand from your colleagues, that's all there is to it. It's no failing Mac, it's human."

He took another breath, and found his hand gripping the edge of the seat; fingers curling round, the plastic cutting into his palm, "You did what you had to, rode with Danny, even though at the same time you knew you wanted to go after Stella and bring her back; and hunt down the bastards who've hurt two of your CSIs."

There was a vacuum in the yellow painted room. Flack turned his gaze to the floor, scuffed with his shoe at a crack in the tiling, and saw no escape from the nightmare that was enveloping all of them. He had to say more; the words were the only thing he could find to keep a grip on the situation, "Danny's tough, he'll be okay, Lindsay and I are going to make damn sure about that, and we'll find Stella; you know she's not the kind of woman to let herself disappear without a fight…"

"That's exactly what might have killed her, Don, putting up a fight." Mac stood suddenly, deliberately suppressed aggression in the movement, "We're sitting here, and she could be lying somewhere dead, or dying. Those men were at the car, she was shouting, they fired a shot and she stopped shouting. What does that say to you? At best she's injured, and at worst…" He faced Flack, who had to look away, his eyes hurting and his mind screaming at him the rest of Mac's unfinished sentence. The white plastic rim of the seat cut deeper lines into his flesh. Mac continued in a voice as strangled and dry as the lack of breeze through the window, "It's been nearly an hour, and every minute that passes is a minute too long, and a minute that could make all the difference to whether she's alive or dead, if we find her."

He moved towards the door, "I've talked enough, Don. I'll call the hospital later, just keep me informed how he is. I need to start looking for any kind of trace left at the scene."

Anything Flack could say was hopelessly inadequate, but he blurted out anyway, "Go. Danny's safe, and we've got everyone we can out there searching for Stella. As soon as I know anymore news on Danny, I'll call you. And yes, we'll find her, alive. We'll find her _alive_, Mac. You know we will."

The heat and fear tightened around him. Mac's eyes had life enough only to die as he answered, "I hope so, Don. I can't accept anything else."

………………………………...

Free from its pursuers, having sloughed them off down dark streets coiling round and through the city, the black SUV slid to a stop. Rich killed the ignition and sat for a second listening to his breathing and the click and hiss of the overwrought engine, watching the air above the skin of the bonnet distort in the rising temperature.

They had stopped on an expanse of waste ground; layered with huge, square tombstone slabs of cement, which the sun had bleached to a dirty blare of white. Parched weeds fringed every join and crack. Thin and wilted to an apparition of itself, the river was visible a few yards away; brown water, drifting listlessly along. A small outcrop of derelict warehouses, a quivering vision in the muggy haze, slumped in the near distance, companioned by a strewing of containers. Everything was rusting and collapsing in haphazard heaps. No persons were visible; only the traces that they had left. Too hot for anyone to be about and exposed.

Breaking the momentary pause, Jake popped his head into the front again, and asked a needless question, "We stopped? This the place?"

Rich turned slowly to face him, taking in the sweat now pouring down the edges of his face and into his eyes, which Jake flicked away with his sleeve. He watched the droplets fly onto his own shirt and soak to dark specks on the material, his face devoid of expression.

Jake continued, oblivious, "Where are we, man? You know this place?"

The older man kept his silence, staring moments too long at Jake, until he squirmed and dropped his eyes. Then he answered him in a voice as bare of life as the landscape, "You asking me something?"

Jake stuttered, "Just… just wondering, y'know, where we are…"

"You don't need to wonder. And you can leave the knowing to me, I know what I'm doing, you don't. It's safe here, we got no one around to spy on us, and we lost the cops. Don't ask me any more questions, we don't have time; get out the car, _and stop fucking around_."

Mouth shut to a thin line, Jake hauled himself out, and Rich waited until he saw him standing outside with one hand smacking a beat on the vehicle's roof, before unfolding himself from the front seat. He walked around to the other side of the car, and pulled open the door, catching hold roughly of the woman's limp form as she fell sideways. Her eyes remained shut, and there was no colour in her face other than the purpling bruise and line of blood he had marked across her forehead. No obvious spark of life. But gripping her shoulders, Rich looked more closely at her, and his suspicion was confirmed when he saw an inkling of movement. Despite the gunshot wound he had inflicted and the blood that still wept from it, there was the slightest lift of breath visible in her, and his expression twisted.

"Well, lady, whatever your name is, looks like the game ain't over yet." He pushed her back against the seat, and reached around to his back pocket.

"What you doing, man?" Jake's questions were irrepressible. He stopped the tattoo on the roof and turned to face Rich, before looking in at the woman, and then back at his partner. His face paled on seeing what he held, "What… but you said… hey, I thought…"

"You got me disappointed in you, dude. You let me down." Sun winked on the weapon in his hand, "You made a mistake. See, when you told me she was dead, you got it wrong. Which means I'm going to have to fix your mistake." He drew his finger back and aimed the gun at the woman's head.

Jake stepped forward; Rich read fear and something else in his eyes, "No, man, no, listen. You got to think a minute about this, we got a chance here to cut our sentence if we're caught. You kill her, and we're going down for sure. Look, look, why not we just take the stuff, destroy it and get the hell out of here, okay?" His voice was trembling, he flicked strings of hair from his eyes, and rubbed his hands down his sweat-stained jeans, "Okay? Don't… don't do this, man."

The sun burned overhead, the air rippled up around them, but Rich didn't flicker, "What are you saying to me, Jake, huh? You _arguing_ with me?"

"No, no, man… I just…"

"I already told you, _don't_ argue with me. And I already told you how I'd feel if you'd made a mistake."

"Listen, it was a mistake, you could have made it too, I didn't…"

"You didn't think. Too bad. But you never do, Jake. However, mistakes can be fixed, and if she wasn't already dead, then she soon will be."

"Rich, man, look, you can't do this…"

"Don't _ever_ tell me what I can't do."

White ghosts, gulls phasing into the ashen sky, laughed and mocked, wheeling circles through the breathless air. A finger moved. A shot rolled round and round, screaming off the concrete and empty walls. One shot. One life. Rich lowered his gun and watched a stream of blood fizz over the thirsting ground.

………………………………...

At Mac's words, a white-hot crack appeared in Don's heart, and he held the other man back momentarily before he left, "Then keep hoping. You know how much she means to all of us, we all care about her, and she's your friend and partner, and all that goes along with that. And you've got to remember, this is _Stella_ we're talking about. If there's one woman in New York who would fight to the last breath, it's her."

They balanced together on the knife edge and then Mac simply nodded, shoulders slumped, "I know, you don't need to tell me that, I know how much fight she has in her." For a moment Flack saw a brief flare of life in his eyes, and then it dimmed, "Holding onto that is the only thing keeping me together at the moment. But I keep thinking that if I hope too hard and tell myself she's alive, then fate's going to turn that around. Equally, if I prepare myself for the worst, then I condemn her."

Flack released his breath and put his hand briefly on his shoulder, "Just keep the hope going, Mac, don't give up."

Mac nodded, "Thanks, Don." Then the usual shutters came down over his eyes, and Flack knew that the brief, and singular, insight into the locked down emotions of a man he knew as intensely private was over, "Keep me informed." He left the room, and Flack sat himself back down with a sigh.

………………………………...

"_Never_ tell me what to do." Rich stared down at the sightless eyes of his partner lying sprawled in the white dust.

He shoved his piece back into the waist band of his jeans and manoeuvred the body of the younger man into the back of the car, grunting heavily. Aware of time more oppressive than the heat now, he rifled through his pockets, pulling out anything that might possibly identify Jake, and stuffing them into his own. As he did so he considered himself and what he did, and came again to the realisation that everything was about identity. And the erasure of it. His own was something even he himself had begun to nebulise. He lost himself in crowds, changed his clothes and hair as the day changed, and kept no name for longer than it suited him. The one he held at the moment was beginning to stretch and wear thin; and it was not long before Rich would blend with all the other detritus that blew along the city streets before disintegrating to nothing. Ashes in the wind.

With only a glance at the body of his former partner, he slammed shut the back doors of the car; time was passing too fast now. Wires wound round and pushed their way into his nerve endings, and he felt the sun burn his back. The woman in the front lay in the same position he had left her, but he could see now for certain she was breathing, and that there was the smallest stir of movement in her. He paused and his hand crept around to his piece. But then a smile snaked across his lips, and he simply closed the door against her side.

Sliding round to the end of the car, he flipped open the trunk and plunged his hand into its contents; he tore, scattered, ripped, smashed and broke. In seconds an ordered collection of kits and evidence was reduced to a chaotic motley of chemicals, paper and plastic. He grinned, and then took out a small item from his front pocket. He flicked the ridged metal circle at the top and held up a corner of paper to it. It flared, a flame jumped and a rippling orange wave soon engulfed the fragile material. He dropped it into the trunk, and waited until more papers threw themselves fainting into the flames; curling, withering, dying into white sheets that fell to nothing. The blaze drew in the combustible material in ravenous delight and devoured it all.

He left the trunk open, and darted round to open the back again; tearing a strip from Jake's shirt, he held the lighter to it, let it catch and then dropped it on his body. And watched as it too caught and grew. Then he ran, across the white ground, with fire under his soles, and left nothing but his destruction behind him.

The white ghost gulls swept low, still screeching and the draughts of heat blew them upwards and away. Writhing, swaying, red and orange phantasms grew and whispered around the car; whispering and breathing. But the one inside who breathed was still not able to hear them.

**Sorry about that, please don't hunt me down, but I haven't had a big cliff-hanger for a while… Please review, all thoughts very welcome, and they help me write the next chapter faster if you want to know what happens XD Lily x**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Seventh chapter: thank you very much indeed for all reviews, please do continue - I still love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to :D Thank you also to everyone who has this on alert. **

**Many thanks to _Blue Shadowdancer_ for a read through**

Lost Letters: Chapter 7

_17th August_

…_I had to wait in for most of the day - I had a delivery coming, and as usual, they never give you an exact time, more a maybe, and a possibly, and a could be sort of time. So I got some chores done anyhow, and a little bit more mail sorted out, including this to you of course! Mrs Adams came and knocked around lunchtime, she had a few more errands she wanted me to run. When I explained I had to wait in, she was a little put out, and said she would have to go herself. I felt kind of bad then, especially after she's been so good to me since I moved here. I'll have to pay a call on her later, as soon as I've had my delivery. If I have time…_

………………………………...

Paint that had begun the day bright under the sun began to cloud, and shrink and bubble. Peeling away, blistering and curling to nothing but black specks, that fell away and left nothing but grey, naked metal. The fire ate greedily; gnawing at the steel of the car as its enamel flesh dropped off, so it soon began to disappear to its skeleton. Across the glass of the back windscreen, a yellow-black scab grew, until the material started to squeal and shriek, before cracking in agony and dying to a shiver of fragments.

The soft upholstered innards of the car began to smoke and blacken as the flames fed their famine. Fabric singed and vanished, singing in a high pitched wail. And only inches away, someone breathed short painful breaths. Breaths of smoke and molecules of chemicals, paper, paint. Too little oxygen, too little time. Short breaths, too short.

………………………………...

"Lindsay…" Mac opened the conversation that was no conversation at all, as she pulled up and he opened the door for her.

"I'm okay, Mac." She circumvented him, "Are you?"

"I've had better days."

There was nothing more to say because there was too much to say. She got out of the car in silence, and they walked forwards together. Each surrounded in a thick, clammy blanket of too many feelings, and no words to express them. Trapped in silence.

The usual life in Lindsay's walk was missing, each footstep hit the ground with a thud, and even her hair hung lank down the sides of her face. There was no smile, and her eyes were lowered, dark pools in a pale face. Something hiding within them too, Mac could see as they stopped, and saw she could not meet his own.

"You found anything?" She bent down and began to unpack her kit.

"Nothing as yet, I'd not long got here."

He picked up the thoughts that were vibrating off her, almost visibly.

_Don't ask me about Danny, don't ask me about anything…_

Questions would have to wait, she was holding herself together with almost nothing, an eggshell protection, so he put what he wanted to ask her away for later. They were simply two CSIs looking for the evidence; both ignoring the emotions crowding and stifling them, but both failing to ignore the presence of the two people they lacked; thoughts of whom filled the spaces between breaths. They could only do what they had to.

Lindsay pointed to something he had just seen himself, "Footprint, Mac. I'll take a casting." She pulled out her equipment and set to work. It wasn't much; a half-moon of a sole print, a few blocks and cavities pressed into a heap of parched dirt. But it might be something, and Mac watched her take comfort in the practical, doing what he knew she did best. He took comfort from the evidence.

He put himself to what he was good at; the connecting, the evidence, the finding, and found himself with his mind running through the city, running along the hundreds of streets, the hundreds of places to hide someone. He was here, and Stella wasn't here. And where she was…

He didn't know, and the fact that he didn't know rose like bile in his throat. For a precious second he looked up and up at the sky and at the skyscrapers, at the mountains of concrete and the seas of people, where somewhere was just one person. It struck him down; there were too many places to hide and be hidden. For a moment he swayed under the consciousness of himself; one man, in one street, in one city. And all the multiples of those singles making too many. It was too easy to be lost, to be hurt, to die.

He could not think anymore. He had to _do_. And ignore the heat, and utter lack of moisture in the air. Mac felt sweat crawling over his scalp, every gland in his skin oozing. He could not remember when he had last drunk any kind of liquid. And then he did remember. As Stella had arrived at the lab, she had greeted him, letting herself into his office and presenting him with a cup of coffee before they both left for the scene he was standing at now. A little gesture, but one of so many that made a multitude. One amongst many.

Dry air. He breathed in dust. No trace was visible. Disappeared. Along with every drop of water that had leached away into all the hidden places of the earth, taking with it the green of greenery, the smells of fresh breezes, and all the colours of life from the city. Everything was slowly desiccating, craving water, dying.

He looked for more evidence. Noted the tracks of the car, the black scars the tyres had left. His footsteps shushed across the concrete as he searched every inch, skirting round and round again, circling the perimeter, willing there to be something he had missed, some clue. But there was nothing else. Stella's phone he had sent back to the lab already, and the only prints on it were her own. Nothing left but her fingerprints. So they kept searching, and overhead the sun described its slow circle of the sky, lengthening their shadows.

………………………………...

Heat. Too hot, too hot, salamander-fire hot. It burnt further and further, consuming the fast-combusting materials, still hankering after more though, sensing it close, smelling the source of fuel that lay beneath the layers of metal. The flames moved through, melting everything under their volcano-tongued heat. It reduced the solid and tangible to untouchable globules and smoke-wraiths, releasing an acrid stench and a chemical haze. Expanding, bloating swelling.

The fire crept closer and closer; whispering almost in her ears, trailing and wrapping its smoke round and round her; twisting gauzy, shroudy fingers through her hair; leaving a touch across her skin; brushing across her closed eyelids and sending poison breaths through her lips. But somewhere inside, muscles moved. Lungs that were filling and suffocating fought back and choked out a mouthful of smoke, blood and fluid.

………………………………...

Adam was waiting dully for a print-out, hand hovering over the printer, feeling the warmth of it rising towards his palm. It clicked and whirred and the paper came shooting out. He looked at it, and then looked up to see Hawkes approaching.

For a moment before the doctor's face revealed itself, Adam hoped he was coming to share good news with him. But as he entered, the door sighing open, he knew there was nothing more to be said from the look in his face.

They all knew, every person in the lab knew what had happened, and it had muted conversation and sent people into huddled, worried groups. Adam had joined none of them, preferring to keep to his sanctuary and do what he could to help. Danny was his friend; Stella, he regarded with a certain amount of trepidation, but not fear, and every thanks she gave him and every smile always brought a grin and a tumble of words to his lips. As well as often a flush to his cheeks when she spoke to him.

When Hawkes had told him what happened at the scene, the room had darkened, and for a moment he felt himself tipping forward, and had to clutch hold of his keyboard, his mouth gaping open uselessly, fingers slipping on the keys. The inaudible became audible: the hum of the monitor; the throb of the computer's hard drive; the soft whush of the air-conditioning above him. Below him, his feet swung against empty air, and he had to drag himself upright in his seat again. And Hawkes had left before he could stutter out the words that had dammed up in his head

_What? How? Why? Is Danny…? Will Stella…?_

It was too late to ask now. Hawkes strode in, this time his face carefully modelled into neutrality.

"Adam, we've got a DB in the park, fished out of the lake. I need you down there with me. You ready to leave now?"

"I'm ready. Ready whenever you are…"

He was happy to do whatever he could, and glad to escape the confines of the lab. A confinement that was closing in on him more than it ever had before. The equipment surrounding him, the wires and the electricity, had grown and menaced him. Wires seemed to stretch and wriggle across the floor and tie themselves around him, trapping him in loops and tendrils of electrical bindweed.

He gulped, fought back, stumbled off his chair, and stood in front of Hawkes, who asked him, "You sure you're good to go with me on this one, Adam?"

"Sure… Sure, I'm good. Sorry, I just… I kind of got to thinking and… and I'm ready."

Hawkes followed him to the door, and his words burned Adam's ears, "Good, 'cause I need you all there on this one. We're going to need all the help we can get. Sid's joining us down there."

Adam nodded and paced ahead along the corridor, not able to stop the feeling that at any other time if he'd been asked to go out to a scene, it would have filled him with pride. Pride that he had been asked, and pride that would have left no room for the fear that still lurked after the warehouse. But all he felt now was a sick apprehension and his steps began to falter as they reached the elevator.

"You sure you're okay, man?" Hawkes's hand was on his shoulder.

Adam turned a weak smile to him, "Yeah, yeah, thanks, Hawkes, I'm fine. Just, y'know, thinking, worried…"

"We all are Adam, but right now, we got a scene, and we got a job we have to do. We'll hear as soon as there _is_ anything to hear." Hawkes pushed the door open and stepped inside, his head down almost on his chest.

Leaving Adam to burn even more; shamed, upset with himself for not being considerate and for not thinking that Hawkes too would be worried about Danny and about Stella. They rode down in a miserable silence.

………………………………...

Heat, she could feel only heat. Around her and inside her; simmering behind her eyes and pounding in agonising waves through her chest and abdomen. She became aware of breathing, and then how each breath seared deep internally. And the heat.

There was darkness… her eyes… The thought struggled to establish itself… her eyes were closed… open them… _open them_…

She opened them to a complex of black and orange. They fell closed again, too hot. She forced them open. Something was wrong. Pain. A spasm of coughing wracked her, and the pain shocked everything into a still separating chromatograph of colours. Something had happened to her, what, she could not remember. But she knew had to move. There was fire, burning, and something else. She found her hand could move, found it moving across her tank top and her jeans, and found it covered in something sticking and smearing. And it hurt, hurt more than anything she could remember. She knew it was something lodged inside her, something that shouldn't be. With a low moan, she tried to move herself. But too slowly.

She was in a car. Get out. Escape. Her hand found the door, fumbled for the handle, and she tried to force her fingers to wrap round it, and failed. Eyes were closing again, she fought them.

Stay open…

Stay open…

Move…

_Get out…_

………………………………...

It had been a long day for Mrs Adams. After the two detectives had taken their leave of her, she had closed the front door with a sigh, and flopped back into her armchair, letting its deep cushions and stuffing sink beneath her. Joshua had slunk back in as soon as she opened the door, and she patted her knee now, inviting him to join her. He stared, hurt pride in his eyes for a few moments, but then comfort won and he jumped up, kneaded her knees and curled himself round in her lap.

"You're a good man, my Joshua-boy." She murmured into his ear, and fondled the top of his head, "The only good one these last few years." He did not disagree with her.

She thought back to what she had revealed, and what she had not revealed to the two young detectives, and guilt chewed at her insides. The four boxes were only four of many more hidden away in all the nooks and crannies of an apartment that held more than it appeared to. Closets bulged, and shelves bowed under the weight of everything that she had been hiding for years. Some of it was gone; the fire she had lit in the kitchen grate a few days ago had destroyed what could do most harm, but what she had said to the female detective still held true. Lives were held in the letters she owned. She should have told them more, and she should have given them more.

But there was nothing she could do about it for now. At least the boy who had robbed her had taken only a fraction of what was important. It mattered, but it could have mattered more. She sighed again, and let her eyes fall closed on a jumble of thoughts. Joshua's rumbling purr soon drifted her into a doze and the pipe in her fingers dropped unheeded to the floor. A dream was beginning to tug at her consciousness, and then a rattle from outside disturbed her. She startled, and shook herself, blinking owlishly. Joshua leaped from her knee and pranced over the floor, so she heaved out of the chair to open the door. He bolted out and up the stairs, and she followed his trajectory. The front door was closing with a crash; she heard after its reverberation the sound of a familiar key turning in the apartment door above hers.

She nodded in satisfaction as the sound of footsteps entering followed, "She's back then, good thing too, I'd been worried about her. Ah well, Joshua-boy, looks like you won't be needing your supper from me. Rita'll have bought you your sweetmeats and you're a cat with no loyalty."

She turned and made her way back down the stairs, and closed her own door, shutting out the evening light and the shade of the trees that overhung her little courtyard.

………………………………...

She tried again, fingers slipping on the hot metal of the door handle, and failed again. The smoke was filling her, and competing with the pain sending furnace-thrust swords through every nerve in her body. She could see nothing but black and grey and orange, and her other senses were smothered with the same. Black and orange heat. Oil and fire and bitter chemicals, and something else like meat burning, creeping into her nose and mouth. Heat and soot and burning under her fingers. Fingers that tried again to close around the handle and release her. But the pain tried to drag her under again; pulling her eyes closed, stealing her consciousness. If she gave in, maybe it would stop…

Beyond her knowledge, the flames at the back of the car reached closer and closer to the gas tank, drawn by the heated fumes, sucking them in, needing more. And the flames inside inched their way closer to her. Fingers dropped almost defeated, and eyes began to close.

Too late, too slow…

………………………………...

Rich ran on, feet pounding, kicking up puffs of white dust. Behind him, getting further away, he could hear the crackle of flames, and a smile twisted his mouth at the thought of the damage he had left behind.

_Serve her right…_

……………………………….....

There was almost nothing left, she was slipping away, but with one last exhausting effort, driven by the will and the determination that she was not going to die inside a burning car, Stella forced herself to raise her hand again. Even that small movement hurt, but she curled her fingers once more around the door handle, and finally, finally it opened. With more strength than she thought she still had, she managed to push her shoulder against the door, grinding her teeth and unable to stop a whimper at the pain it cost her. But the door pushed open and she found herself falling out onto the ground. And then she realised she could move no further. Lying there panting for breath, her body refused to move, even though she screamed in her mind at herself, knowing she was not safe. That she was too close to the car, that any moment it might explode. She tried to turn herself from where she had landed on her side, pushing herself up, but her muscles refused to cooperate, and she felt blackness start to swirl in her mind, and everything starting to fade away. She tried to fight it, tried with everything she had left. Tried to hold on to herself, to move, to escape.

_I don't want to die…_

And then even as her awareness was almost gone, she realised there was someone beside her, and she felt hands around her arms. Someone's voice was shouting, but the words were unintelligible amongst the screams and roars of the flames just beyond her, and the pain that was scalding her from inside out. Someone was pulling her; someone's arms were round her; hands linked over her chest. Then the voice was shouting again, but she could not answer; words were ashes blowing away from her. She felt herself dragged across hard ground, quick scuffing footsteps behind her, and then they stopped.

The hands eased her down and she was lying flat, looking up, feeling almost nothing but the thump of red-hot agony in her body. Each breath became more and more laboured and her vision was beginning to fall to pieces. The sky was white and seemed to be coming down lower and lower towards her. But a face blocked it for a moment. One she did not know; eyes looking down at her, a mouth open. A roar and a flash of gold and ruby and orange swept upwards, just beyond her. The face still there, but fading. Then there was white sky and the white sun falling out of it; falling, falling onto her, consuming her consciousness and leaving nothing.

**Please review! Thanks, Lily x**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Eighth chapter: thank you so much for all reviews, please continue - I still love to know what you think; even if you don't like anything in the story, please do tell me as it helps me think about how I write. I welcome all feedback, and will always reply. Thank you also to everyone who has this on alert.**

**Thanks to _Mouse, Michelle _and _Fat Kat _for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a review reply. Thank you to _sarramaks_ for reading and suggestions**

**Very slight spoilers for 'Heroes'**

Lost Letters: Chapter 8

A chrysanthemum cloud of flame bloomed high into the already over-heated air; scattering petals of fiery debris which drifted down to land over the bleached white earth, wobbling in the heat. They fell to nothing but ghosts of themselves, leaving only smudges on the two figures in the landscape: one crouched with its head in its hands next to the other one, who lay unmoving on the ground.

The sun burned on as it sailed across the sky; the fire flower drooped and died; the two figures disappeared.

Then the stillness was shattered by a whirring, buzzing roar as a police helicopter dipped low and the eyes inside saw the smouldering remains of what they had been searching for. A hand pressed a radio to lips and the message passed through the air, "All units please respond…"

………………………………...

"Gentlemen." Sid greeted Adam and Hawkes as heartily as he could, as they trudged over the remains of the grass towards him. He was crouched uncomfortably by the water-logged body of a young man, trying to rid himself of the needles of dead grass that were tormenting him, and finding their way into every crevice of shirt, trousers and skin. He hated this time of year; the cold simplicity of December suited him far more. December scenes also brought forth far fewer crowds of onlookers. At present he felt surrounded; by eyes hidden by sunglasses, faces hidden by caps and hats, and by individuals hidden by a crowd.

He looked at both men as they reached him, and read their faces clearly. His own fell, "You've heard no more? No more news on how Danny is at least?"

"Nothing." Hawkes set down his kit heavily whilst Adam hovered behind him.

Sid sighed and suddenly felt weary and old. The news had grieved him far more than he wanted to reveal: the others were clearly struggling with their own feelings without having to take on his as well. But he felt shaken to his soul. Danny was the one who always brought a spark of life and humour to the morgue; vitality crackling from the tips of his hair to the heels of his shoes; never short of a grin and a joke, or a curse when needed. Sid would raise his eyebrows and smile at his humour, even if it wasn't always what _he_ would call funny himself.

And then there was Stella. If Danny was the spark, then she was the fire; and his smile never failed when she walked through the doors. If the team of people he knew as a family and as friends lost either of them…

He simply could not imagine that.

Hawkes's voice faded in, and he shook the thoughts out of his mind for the present. They could only do the job in front of them, and keep hope as their signal-fire.

There was no preamble, "What can you tell us, Sid?"

He motioned them to come closer, and pointed to the bullet hole in the centre of the man's forehead, "Well, I'm almost certain that COD was not drowning, contrary to him being pulled out of the lake an hour ago. I'd say the gunshot wound to the head was what killed him - at this stage it doesn't appear to be post-mortem. And the usual signs of death by drowning are not present on first examination - I suspect I'll confirm that when I open him up."

Sid noticed that Adam kept a little way back from the body, but he decided not to push him to move any nearer; the distress from events was clear on his face. Hawkes's also; the usual placidity in _his_ countenance was painfully absent. Sid sighed and turned back to the task in hand, "Our vic also appears to have suffered a fairly violent beating, probably not long before his death judging by the appearance of the lacerations. See here… and here." Numerous abrasions and cuts were clearly visible; the man wore a short sleeved T-shirt which clung in wet wrinkles to a lean chest and exposed a scraggy neck and arms. He was in his mid-twenties at most.

Sid continued without irony, "I'm guessing he upset someone."

"Upset them enough to kill him." Hawkes frowned.

"The position of the bullet hole is the same as I saw on the young woman's body that was Mac's scene this morning." Sid was making connections himself, and Hawkes was right beside him.

"Coincidence, or possibly the same killer? We'll know more when we can get the bullets compared."

Adam spoke up suddenly, "What… what do you want me to do?"

Hawkes gave him a glance, "Take the periphery, Adam. Check out around the shore, see if you can find any trace of anything to tell us where he went in, and who was around."

But Adam hesitated and Sid watched him shift from one foot to the other, "You've probably both noticed, I'm sure, and I'm probably telling you what you already know, but…"

"Let's hear it, Adam." Hawkes's voice was a touch impatient, Sid decided, but he made no comment. A beetle crawled along his forearm, tickling excruciatingly and he blew it off onto the grass, watching it scuttle away through the brown stalks and vanish.

Adam pointed to the dead man, "There's something in his fingers, between his thumb and index finger. Look, just… just a scrap of something. You'd hardly notice, but… but I always look at people's hands…"

Sid smiled at him, and at Hawkes's raised eyebrow. Two pairs of glasses were engaged and Adam visibly held his breath as Hawkes gently prised open the cold, wet fingers.

"We _hadn't_ yet noticed, Adam, so it's a good thing _you_ were here to do so." A little chink of light pierced his heart as Sid saw the pleasure on Adam's face. So few words but so much difference.

Hawkes tweezered the sodden scrap of paper into a bag and looked up, "Good job, Adam. We need you out in the field more often."

The smile lit his face as Adam ducked his head and answered, "I'll go check out the perimeter."

He hurried off towards the shore, and the two doctors continued to examine the body, Hawkes glancing now and again over at Adam, visible only as the rustling and shaking of willow branches, and audible through the crunch of twigs and undergrowth.

"He's doing a good job." Sid stated as Hawkes looked over again, his forehead creased.

The younger man sighed, "I know, and I'll tell him that, I'm just… on edge."

"We all are." He could say no more, and they returned to the body and its secrets.

After a couple of hours, there was little to show for the painstaking search all three had undertaken: the fragment of paper in the dead man's fingers; a footprint in the clay by the lake; a piece of fabric caught on a broken branch; and a triangle of coloured paper nestling in a bed of willow leaves, with a few letters visible on one side. Adam had passed it to Hawkes with a smile that grew with a compliment for work well done.

Sid was almost ready to go. He had done all he could at the scene, and the body was zipped into the black bag, its identity covered up. The crowd had dispersed, and the scene was closing down. Crime-scene tape sagged, barely visible against the blanched grass, and the sun was striking his eyes as it sank below the skyline.

Black body bags were not the thing, Sid had decided many years ago, for high temperatures; certainly not for the broiling heat of a New York summer. Neither was the temperature the thing for him, but at least in a short time he would be returning to the morgue and its air-conditioning, which rendered the outside temperature a matter of no concern. He was already longing for its cool, sea-breeze calm atmosphere. His wish though, was that he could go back there to find Danny and Stella safely returned to them. For that, he would gladly suffer the discomfort of the weather for any length of time.

The heat was becoming too much for him; he could feel his glasses sliding off his nose, the plastic hot and slippery, their cord chafing his neck; and he could feel his shirt sticking to his back like a wet rag. He gazed out over the lake, shielding his eyes from the molten gold of the surface, and let his thoughts glide. Danny and Stella; he wished they were beside him now to see the beauty he saw.

It was suddenly almost irresistible, the urge he had to peel off his outer garments and plunge into the depths, away from the nightmare they were surrounded in. He loved to swim, and to feel the water surround and hold him; to float on his back and fall into the reveries of his life, that this would be what death was; peaceful, serene, elemental. This would be what he returned to when he died…

But not today. The reality was that he had seen too many deaths. Too many that should not have happened; and he did not want to add Danny or Stella to that list. Not today. Not ever.

"Sid!"

He jumped. Hawkes had his head tilted to one side, "You okay? We lost you there for a moment."

He unclipped his glasses, "A moment's thought, Sheldon, that's all. I'm ready to take our vic back."

Hawkes nodded, "We'll see you back there…"

And then the radio on his belt squawked out the words that brought the chill of December into all their bones, "… We have a 1053, possibly involving missing vehicle. Police chopper has sighted a burnt-out vehicle in Harlem. All units stand by…"

………………………………...

The horizon rose up to meet the sun, and draw it back down below the city. The light faded to cream, to yellow, and then to the orange of the city's artificial night, when the skyscrapers transformed themselves into charcoal braziers filled with human embers.

Lindsay stood and stared for a moment, breathing in the late evening air with all its smells of cooling asphalt, concoctions of food preparations, and the unmistakeable odour of un-emptied dumpsters behind the delicatessen they were beside.

Mac was still treading a restless circle of the scene even though they both knew there was nothing more to find. Defeat was something neither of them was willing to accept despite the little they had found: the half a shoe print and a few drops of blood scraped from the ground.

The whole time they had been at the scene she had tried, tried so hard, not to look too often at the rusting stain of blood where she knew Danny had fallen. Glass and plastic shards from the impact lay around the site, glinting in the shafts of sunset spreading themselves over the ground. Danny. Fallen. The words reverberated around her head. Fallen and still not risen.

_Danny, what were you thinking? You stupid, stupid, brave, stupid man, Danny…_

Suddenly, she could stand it no longer, her fists were clenched, her stomach was heaving with sick, shivering fear. If she stood for much more time she would lose control and the tears that were battering against the fragile shell around her would tear through. Because she did not know. She did not know how Danny was, or if he would recover; and she did not know where and how Stella was; or even if she was alive. The last text she had received from Flack half an hour earlier had told her no better or no worse news on Danny: he was still in the OR, and his family had just arrived. Flack was speaking to them, and then he was leaving the hospital. There was nothing more known about Stella.

Not for the first time that day she cast up her eyes, letting the falling sun brand her vision, and whispered a prayer.

_Dear God, if you're listening, please be listening, please, oh please, oh please…_

Her new radio, fully charged and checked for any of the faults her previous one had let everyone down with, stopped her plea. Mac was striding over to her, fear and hope in his eyes as the words came through. Words from a voice that had lost its human timbre through the frequency translation

"… Repeat; vehicle found, waste ground behind 118th street. All units please respond…"

………………………………...

The helicopter pilot hovered as close and as low as possible above the scene. Low enough for the river water to be blasted outwards in a rose bowl shape as he shifted the machine over when the first patrol cars began to sweep into the site. The cars stopped in all positions, resembling toys zooming in haphazardly and screeching to a dead halt. People spilled out of them and gathered like iron filings round the smoking wreckage, but with an invisible boundary repelling them. The Fire Department trucks followed, then a black SUV.

He was close enough to see the figures that burst forth from it: a man who came running to the circle and stopped dead, and a woman close behind him who stopped a few feet away, frozen; their shock and disbelief clear even from the altitude he watched from. Another man, and a woman close on his heels ran over; there were gestures, touches, arms moving, pushing, holding. Holding back as the fire-fighters pushed their way through and white foam, a strange snow in summer, blanketed the wreckage. The pilot almost heard the hush that fell as the final flames died and their spectres dissipated into the atmosphere.

………………………………...

_16th August_

…_Poor Joshua. Though really I don't know if I should feel sorry for him, as I suspect he's responsible whether he meant to be or not. He came up today for his usual second breakfast (yesterday it even turned out to be his third) and I saw he'd left a trail of feathers behind him. So I followed it, with him trailing behind, letting me know just what he thought of me, and I found that he'd caught a blackbird and hidden it behind the bookcase in the hallway. It was still alive, despite Joshua's best attempts, and I managed to rescue it and take it back into my apartment. But it was too badly hurt and even though I tried to help it, the poor thing died in my hands. There was nothing else I could do, so I gave it the best burial I could…_

………………………………...

"You don't need to say anything, Don."

It was not Mac in front of him anymore; he realised that the instant he looked into his eyes. It was a man created from the Marine, from the Detective and from the CSI. There was nothing human in there, nothing with any feelings or emotions. Mac Taylor had not lost it; he _was_ lost. Within the carefully assembled construction standing there looking at him with dead eyes. And Flack knew that if the body within the burnt out car really was Stella, then he was lost for ever, along with a part of every one of them.

"Mac…"

"It's not her."

"Mac, I don't want it to be either, you know that, you _know_ that I want that more than anything, but we got to accept that it might be…" He groaned and pushed his fists into his eyes, "Oh shit. _Shit_…"

Lindsay was standing alone, away from the car, silent tears coursing down her cheeks. Angell was close to Flack, watching the dialogue with Mac uneasily.

Mac stopped a few meters from it and stooped down, "She got out. It's not her." He held something up in his gloved hand, "Stella's badge. _Outside_ the car."

He moved on and pointed at the patch of blood by what had been the car's back door. There was no inflexion of emotion in his voice. Just his arguments, "Blood outside the car. This is what I think: there were two men, Don, and I think one of them, for whatever reason, killed the other and put his body in the car, and burnt the evidence. That's the explanation. I don't think this is her blood, and I don't think that's her body. I want this analysed, but I'm telling you_, _it's not her inside."

"Mac…" He could only repeat his name, feeling numb. It was too much for Flack to comprehend; the death of another member of Mac's team.

_Please, not again, not again, not after Aiden, not again…_

Mac was walking away again from the car, his finger moving along a line of marks on the ground, and dark drops of what he knew to be blood, "Here. Someone was dragged along, leaving a trail of blood. I want this analysed as well, but I'm telling you, _that's_ Stella's. She got out, somehow, probably with help, meaning she's hurt and we have to look for her here."

Flack's voice was almost drowned as he said what he had to then, "_If_ she did, there's still the chance whoever did this, found another way… Mac, I don't want to do this to you, but I have to look at all options… Mac, the river, she might…"

The man's gaze fixed blankly on him again, "Do what you have to do in that respect, Don. But I'm following what the evidence is telling me. She got out and we have to find her. And we don't have much time. We can't wait for autopsy to tell me that isn't her inside that car; there's a chance, and we're taking it now. I want this area searched. Do you understand me?" Eyes that held less life than the moon above them, held Flack in thrall.

He forgave Mac there and then for anything that should not have been said. There was no other answer he could give in the circumstances. For Stella's sake, and everyone else alongside her. He barely paused, "Understood, Mac. I'm on it."

Flack charged away, shouting into his radio as he ran, leaving Mac a ghost in the waning light.

No-one saw the man who watched and hid. And no-one saw the pale gleam of moonlight reflected from the tiny object half-buried in the near distance. An object that had swung in an ear and reflected the sunlight, as its owner stood at a crime scene only hours before.

**Sorry to be a little slow in updating. Hope you enjoyed this, but even if not, please review and tell me so I can improve it. Thank you very much, Lily x**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Ninth chapter: thank you very much for all previous reviews! I hope chapter eight was okay. Please continue with reviews - I love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to if logged. Thank you to everyone with this on alert. **

**Thank you to _Fat Kat _for your review, sorry I couldn't send a reply.**

**Thank you to _Blue Shadowdancer_ for reading**

Lost Letters: Chapter 9

_15th August_

…_I hung out with Joe for most of yesterday, something we haven't had chance to do in ages. He's been too busy with the guys; they've been meeting at TJ's place rather than here, and they didn't want me involved with the latest job. He called round late evening and we took a walk down by the lake and around the shore. It seems to be the freshest place there is in the city right about now. It was getting dark by the time we got there, which was kind of cool as it meant there weren't too many people around. So no one saw us when we went into the water, minus our bathing suits. It had to be done; don't tell me you've never done the same, or thought of doing it…_

………………………………_..._

He was. Only just. Somewhere he could feel with the smallest, faintest strand of consciousness. But where that somewhere began or ended, or where _he_ began or ended… Of that, he had no idea. No colours, no sounds, no identity. Nothing. Not even his name.

The man unknown to himself as Detective Messer, Daniel Messer, Danny, lay in a bed that was the identikit of all the others in the hospital; in a room the same as any other in the building; and in a ward that had nothing to distinguish it from any of the hundreds like it.

But he was not alone. Sitting either side of him, a hand held in each of theirs, were his parents. His father's face was locked into a rigid mask; lips reduced to white puckers in his pale skin; cheeks blotched red. His mother's eyes were mirrors, but she had not cried: the tears were too many; if she let one fall, then they would all fall, and she knew that once that happened, she would not be able to stop them.

With every visible beat of his heart on the monitor above him, his mother squeezed his fingers; feeling them cold in hers and suddenly as small and vulnerable as they had been when he was a child running beside her along the deck of the Staten Island ferry, and she had hollered at him to keep the hell away from those damn railings in case he fell overboard. She had clutched him then, and pulled him back; scolding and threatening. And he had grinned at her, and rushed right back over to dangle his heels above the water.

And all she could see now was the dark, heaving depths of the river, and her son's laughing face; heedless of any danger.

………………………………_..._

Flack wasted no time coordinating and deploying the personnel milling about the scene. His duty was what he clung to; knowing that if he let go for a second, the horror of what he didn't want to believe had happened to Stella, would put hands around his heart and throttle the life out of it. He kept moving, shouting, focussing; hoping with all his heart that Mac was right, and that the evidence he had found outweighed the evidence of the twisted metal carcass that was in the corner of his vision, no matter which way he turned.

How could Stella be dead? Mac had to be right; she got out. She had too much life in her not to have done. And he had to believe the same for Danny, who had life boiling over, and enough to spare for all those who knew him; he had to believe that he would recover; that he would be laughing again with him soon, drinking beers with him, ribbing him. All the things he would say to him when, _when_ he woke up were stored ready.

He kept moving. Focus. Keep focussed. It was a large area to search; too large, too easy to hide a body… no, a _person_, to hide _Stella_. If she was alive. If she was there.

"Come on, Stel." He muttered as he jogged over to a knot of uniformed officers, "Where are you? Don't let us down, don't let Mac and the evidence down. You've gotta be alive, you've gotta be here somewhere, you _have_ to have got out of that car. If anyone could, it's you."

Some of the uniforms he sent over to the edge of the river; another group he sent to the far edge of the waste ground where clumps of shrubs and bushes sagged against a chain-link fence. Next he phoned Hawkes, telling him to get himself to the scene as soon as he could - the search was their priority, but they also had to deal with the fact that this was a crime scene that needed processing. And he knew Hawkes could be relied upon. Then he radioed for the underwater search team, and EMS - with the hope, which he never thought he would have, that they _would_ be needed.

His throat was rasping painfully by the time he had finished; dried up from shouting and from the bone-dry air. He ignored it; stopping instead for a moment and rotating on his heel to make sure he had missed no one, no corner, no possibility. He nodded to himself, as satisfied as he could be, before pocketing his radio and running over to Mac who, with Lindsay and Angell either side of him, was sweeping the ground. Their flashlights were playing over every inch.

Angell gave him a slight smile as he approached, and the understanding in the quick glance and inclination of her head she gave him, renewed some of his strength.

"Mac. All happening. Hawkes is on his way to start processing and I got the uniforms, and everyone else who needs to be, organised and searching." He sucked in a breath, "I also got EMS on their way. Where d'you want me?"

The other man looked up at his voice. Flack saw no change in his expression; except perhaps for a heavier set of determination in his features.

"I want you around the scene making sure everyone knows what they have to do. Lindsay, Angell and I will look in the near group of buildings over there and the containers."

"You got it."

Flack took off again with Angell's eyes keeping him alight.

………………………………...

"Well? Why you got me meeting you here, huh?"

"'Cause anyplace else ain't safe, that's why. You got the job done? Any complications?"

Rich shifted further along into the booth, and curled his back against the seat; rubbed his hands down his thighs and met the shadowed gaze of the man sitting opposite.

"We got it done…"

"So, you going to tell me why our buddy ain't here then?"

"We had a few complications, TJ, but I got 'em sorted."

"Oh yeah? Don't think I like the sound of complications." TJ leaned forwards, and placed his red, shiny hands on the table. He wore a baseball cap with a greasy peak pulled well down over his forehead. Not far enough to hide completely the faint pink scar that ran across one brow ridge to his temple; and not far enough to hide his eyes. They bored into Rich, and he recognised all too well the anger in them that was disguised as mild curiosity. "Tell me how, Rich. How'd you get 'em sorted, and what were they? And you'd better sweep that mess you're makin' off of the table. Don't want no complaints about mess to make us stand out."

Rich swept up the sugar that had come bursting out of the packet he had been crushing in his hands unconsciously, "Sorry dude."

Since he had run from the car, he had been perfecting what he could tell TJ that wouldn't get him suffering a similar fate to the one he had inflicted on his partner, and the woman he had left to die. After visiting an address in Harlem, well-known to both himself and TJ, he had received a phone call from the man himself to meet him mid-town. He knew his words now were crucial; any wrong explanation, any hint of a lie, and TJ would know, and would act on it. Rich knew perfectly well that the newspapers would not hold back on the story once what was left of the car was discovered, which it would be eventually. He was on borrowed time.

"You gonna tell me any time soon? I'm a busy man, Rich…" TJ tweaked the peak of his cap down further.

Rich brushed the grains of sugar off his hand and proceeded to tell the carefully rehearsed story. A few facts and truths were lost along the way, but he hoped that by the time they were found to be missing, he would no longer be Rich and he would have no further need to worry.

Half an hour later, a man in a non-descript football jersey, with a baseball cap the same as hundreds of New Yorkers wore pulled down over their faces, left the corner diner and joined the late evening crowds along the streets. As he pushed his way down the avenue towards Central Park, he attracted barely a glance.

………………………………...

He saw something. Just for a second. And then it was gone again.

"Mac? Mac, what is it?"

Lindsay trotted to catch him up as he strode forward, Angell closely following. There was no time for explanations, he had to act, before he lost what he had seen. He squinted up at the moon, then down at the ground, trying to track the faint star of light he had seen over towards the heaps of containers just outside the rays of his flashlight. He stopped, the two women pausing behind him, and looked all around at the white-grey expanse, flat and dead ground. Everywhere was silent, still, waiting. The weeds lining and defining the broken wastes shivered and crumbled under his feet as he moved back and forth. Steps to the left, to the right, back, forwards… nothing. The gleam that had guided him for a moment was gone.

Then it returned, just one glimmer, gone again. But he pinpointed it, marking its place, burning it in his brain. He jogged forward and knelt carefully. More dry grass and leaves sighed before disintegrating under his knees. The concrete, still leaking trapped heat, burned through the thin material of his black pants, and he felt tiny pieces of grit denting his skin. He saw it; a diamond-white jewel nestled in the chalky dirt. He scraped with his fingertips, and its whole was revealed: an earring; a diamante drop on a silver loop that he had last seen at the crime scene that had changed everything. An earring that had last been in Stella's possession. The long-passed moment returned exactly; as she shook her head at Danny, and the sun snatched a mirror image of itself from the jewel in the centre.

It was in his fingers now; he turned it, examining it, and letting the flashlight reflect its light across his face. Another piece of Stella, fallen away, but leading him closer to her. If it was here, then she had been here. She was still here. Somewhere.

Lindsay crept up to him, and knelt beside him, "Mac? What have you found?"

He held it up to her, and she drew a breath in, holding out her hand, "Stella's. I remember her wearing them this morning - I asked her where she got them..."

"Stella's." Mac held onto it, not quite able to let the so small and so significant belonging out of his grasp.

Lindsay brushed it with her fingers and withdrew her hand. "Then she's here somewhere, Mac. She got out, she _had_ to have done." Her eyes were black watered silk in the twilight, and her face was drawn into corners and angles. Mac doubted that she would have much sleep tonight; along with everything that had happened, he knew as soon as she was able to, she would be going to see Danny. As he would; as soon as he knew Stella was safe.

"The evidence tells me the same." He stood, and his eyes darted round; still assessing every face, checking every shadow. But there was nothing untoward.

Angell joined them, "Stella's?"

He nodded, "She was wearing them today. I found it here." He indicated with his foot, "Given its distance from the car, it's further evidence she got out."

Angell stood with her hands on her hips, mouth pursed, "But where is she in that case? If she was injured, she can't have got far." She paused; Mac guessed her words before she spoke them, "Unless she was taken."

He was turning in a caged circle, seeking out all possible places that Stella might be, trying to suppress images of her lying somewhere, life bleeding away as time wasted away. Every drop a second.

"Even if she was, I'm working on the evidence that she's still in the immediate vicinity, unless I find something that tells me otherwise." He indicated the heaps of battered metal boxes, and the low cluster of buildings that were a moonlit backdrop. Both had potential for a person to be concealed, deliberately or otherwise, "We start with the containers, then we move to the warehouses."

Half-way across, he stopped and bent down again. Very faint, pressed into a ridge of dust, were a few footprints, one set, and a few more splashes of blood. Angell's hypothesis seemed confirmed.

He indicated them to her, "The prints aren't Stella's, she was wearing heels. These are from someone wearing sneakers. It appears you're right; someone was with her."

Lindsay nodded and bit her lip, "More blood…"

More blood. Too much. Stella's blood; where it shouldn't be. And the fact that she was leaving no footprints herself. Mac bowed his head, and tried to walk no further down the dark path his thoughts were pulling him down. Follow the evidence only.

He looked at the prints, and pointed out to the two women the direction they seemed to be going, "This way."

They continued to the containers, Lindsay and Angell now slightly ahead.

Angell flashed her torch and her weapon around the vicinity of the first one, "Nothing here Mac, no footprints, no weeds disturbed, and the bolt's rusted tight."

They moved to the second. It was open, the doors peeled away, revealing a gaping maw, thick black inside. He swung his torch, but it defeated him; empty. His hand struck the side, orange splinters stuck to and stained his hand. They moved on. Listening and looking all the time for any sound, any trace of life. Nothing.

The third container had sagged into its neighbour; a deep concave in its metal flank. The ground looked slightly disturbed around it, and its doors swung open with a dull clang at Mac's touch, darkness pouring forth. He beamed his flashlight, weapon out, and a hollow rattle and scuttering sounded within; closely followed by a flurry of pattering creatures who sped away across the ground. Lindsay suppressed a shriek, and banged her elbow against the container as she jumped, "Sorry, Mac, I startled, it's the way they run… you'd think I wouldn't mind, we had enough of them at home, but…" She shuddered, and peeled herself away from the side, stepping gingerly and shining her own light on the ground in wide circles, "No human prints, just rodent prints."

There was no other life inside. Mac swallowed his frustration and they continued. Hide and seek. All the times he had played as a child on the streets of Chicago he remembered suddenly: he was usually forbidden from being seeker - his playmates having gotten wise to the fact that he was too good at finding the usual places they hid; the back of dumpsters, between groups of trashcans, behind neighbours' fences and shrubs. So he had found better places to hide himself from their eyes; and they had made him seeker again. And now here he was once more. Seeking. Playing anything but a game.

They moved in unison to the final container. A sullen, corrugated heap, streaked brown and blood red in the twilight. Mac put out his hand to the surface, and it touched his skin, the metal still radiating the heat of the day. Silence; no chatter of rats, no creak of a door, but he knew silence could conceal a host of dangers and secrets. The end was unsealed; a defunct bolt hung by an oxidised thread and the doors were joined only by a strip of darkness. With a glance at both women, checking weapons were raised all round, Mac stood to the side and eased his hand around the edge of the door.

He pulled. Nothing happened. It was trapped within its age and shedding skin; flakes of dead iron which fluttered to the ground as he pulled harder. Nothing moved. He tugged it, grimacing, and with a screech and wail, the door parted from its hinges and crashed to the side, everyone leaping out of its way with not a second to spare.

"We're okay." Angell's voice, only slightly breathlessly informed him. Mac peered inside, lifting his flashlight to illuminate the thick creases of darkness within. He swept it round and down. Shadows jumped and flitted.

It was empty. Nothing.

He got no satisfaction from the dull clang the door made as he struck it.

"Dammit! _Dammit_!"

For only a second, he allowed some of the rage and frustration that he was containing using every fibre of his self-control, fracture out of him. Then he heaved a breath in, then another and sealed the crack. Focus. Lindsay was watching him warily, Angell's expression was carefully calm.

His next words were levelled flat, "Let's move. We still got the warehouses to search."

He led the way to the nearest building; its red brick outer wall barely covered in peeling white skin. They hurried along it towards the entrance; a wooden panel that was designed to slide open on rollers above the lintel. Mac put his hand out to it. Then Angell touched a discreet hand to his arm and murmured, "Mac, turn around very slowly; we're being watched. There's someone standing in the doorway of the other building…"

Measuring the seconds, he pivoted and followed her gaze; a man was half-hidden in the shadows of the doorway. As Mac took a step forward, the man's eyes caught his, and his body slipped out of sight; but his eyes were still visible, and remained so as the three detectives walked with quick, silent footfalls towards him.

**Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please let me know even if not, all opinions very welcome. Next chapter up soon, as I have written a little further ahead. But reviews really help! Lily x**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Tenth chapter: thank you VERY MUCH for all previous reviews! Please continue - I love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to if logged. Thank you also to everyone with this on alert. **

**Thank you to _Fat Kat _for your review of the last chapter, sorry I couldn't send a reply**

**Thank you to _Blue Shadowdancer _for reading, and to _notesofwimsey_ for discussion**

Lost Letters: Chapter 10

_14th August_

… _not such a good day today. I know I can trust you, so I can tell you what happened. The job the guys asked me to do yesterday was a tough call, and I messed it up. I messed up real bad, and I know TJ's not happy with me. He asked to see me this afternoon and I called at his place, Jake and Rich were there already: Jake at least looked kind of sorry for me.; Rich I swear was happy to see me in trouble. I got totally reamed out by TJ, and was told that the next job is not going to involve me at all. I met up with Joe afterwards, and he promised me that he'll take me someplace nice tomorrow, maybe to the park. I hope so. He's good to me, Joe, the best friend I have in this city. I don't know what I'd do without him…_

………………………………_........................._

They stopped a yard from the doorway, and Mac, keeping one hand on his piece, held his other out behind him, signalling to Lindsay and Angell that he would take the lead. The eyes that had watched their approach, fastened on him as he took a step forward into the silhouette of the door, his own moon-cast shadow disappearing into it. On instinct, he lowered his flashlight and shrank its circle of light. The other two did the same, and three small white spheres hovered across the ground in syncopation.

"Stop."

A pair of eyes thrust forward and as if rising from murky water, the face that held them was revealed; thin and lined, blunt nose, pale skin with grey furrows in the cheeks and forehead, twines of dirty blonde hair hanging at the sides.

The eyes blinked, and a hand, dark-palmed and trembling slightly, was held up to Mac, blocking any further advance, "I live here, you ain't coming no closer, you hear? Stop there. Don't want no one else here."

Mac felt his pulse thump, "Why's that? Has someone else been here?"

The face withdrew, "You ain't coming any closer. Back off."

"You got a name? I can give you mine if that helps."

A chin and nose came back into view and a hand brushed a hank of hair away from cracked lips, "Yeah? What's your name then?"

"Detective Mac Taylor. You want to share yours?"

"Who the two behind you? They got names?"

"Detectives Lindsay Monroe and Jessica Angell." Lindsay's softer tones appeared to appease the man a fraction.

He moved forward a little further and screwed his eyes up at the trio, "Cops, huh? You look like cops. I figured that, what with all the cars and fuss you got going on way over there. Got badges to show me?"

Mac felt the slightest wryness curl his lips, "We got badges. Here."

All three held them out, and after scrutinising them without moving from his pool of shadows, the man nodded, "Cops. What you after? I ain't done no harm here, not causing any trouble."

"You're not in trouble; we just want to ask you some questions. We're looking for someone, and I think you might be able to help us." Mac risked a step forward as he clipped his badge back onto his belt, "You want to tell us your name?"

"Zee. Name's Zee."

"Good name. Short for anything?"

"You're smart, for a cop. Yeah, short for Zacharias. Too many letters. Just Zee. Got any more questions?"

He stepped back into the building, into a slip of moonlight. Mac saw the whole of him then: a tall, lanky man; shoulders that were rounded, giving him a slight stoop, and a defensive posture - a man, he guessed, to whom the world had not shown much friendship. He was dressed in a weather-beaten jacket, jeans with more holes than denim, and a shirt; grey in the half-twilight, but showing a dark stain in the middle. Mac saw more marks on the cuffs of his jacket and hands. He took a guess, feeling his heart thud against his chest.

"Are you hurt, Zee? Looks like you got some blood on your shirt. Did you hurt yourself? Or is someone else hurt?"

He took another step, over the threshold now, hearing his shoes scrunch in the dirt and grit on the floor. His flashlight raced along the edges of the room. Shadows reeled along the walls as the beam passed over stacks of empty wooden tea chests. There was nothing else. Briefly, he let the beam rest on the man's torso. It confirmed his guess; the mark on his shirt was blood; a deep maroon blotch in the torchlight. The flashlight flicked upwards.

Zee's hands flew to his face. Hands that were also bloodied, "Get that off me! Get the hell off me! Put the freakin' light out already…"

Mac swung the light down. Blood on the floor. Stella's. Almost certainly.

"I need to know if you're hurt. If you are, we can help you. Or if someone else is hurt, you need to tell us, so we can help them."

"I'm not hurt. And I don't need your help, okay?"

As he spoke, he lowered and slid his hands into his jacket pocket.

Mac's hands tightened on his piece, "You got something in your pockets? If you got a weapon, I'm telling you now, all three of us are armed, so take your hands out real slow, okay? Show us what you got, nice and slow."

Zee stared, eyes pinpoints of jet, but he withdrew his hands, a finger at a time. "I got nothing on me, okay, so you can lower your guns. See?"

He held his palms out. Empty. Mac lowered his piece, and stared at him. "You sure you got nothing? Nothing else you found outside maybe?"

"Who says I found anything?"

The answer was too quick. Zee tugged at his shirt, and ran a quivering hand through his hair. His face was satined with sweat, and his chest rose and fell rapidly. Behind him, breathing steadily, Mac was aware of both Lindsay and Angell waiting and watching.

He risked another step, "I think you found something, Zee."

Hands pushed against the air between them, "Back off. What if I did? Think you can just bust in here and start asking me questions? Ain't gonna work, cop."

"What did you find, Zee? Because I found something outside too, not far from here. I found a badge like ours; and I found this." He stretched his hand out, Stella's earring on his palm, and shone the flashlight, letting the light dart from it, "This belongs to someone I know, someone I'm looking for, someone I think's been hurt. She's a detective too; my partner, and my friend. And I think you can help us find her. Now, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. Your choice. So, I'm going to ask you again, Zee. _Did you find something_?"

A silence stretched. Zee lowered his hands, tugged his jacket round him, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, "Yeah, okay, yeah; I found something."

The sigh of breath from Lindsay and Angell echoed his own, "What did you find, Zee?" Mac took a step closer, "You want to show us?"

Zee took a step back, "You gonna arrest me?"

"No, I'm not going to arrest you, I just need to know what you found." He took a leap of hope, "Did you find some_one_? Is that it? Someone out there?"

There was no answer from Zee; instead his eyes dropped away, and flickered to the far wall. Another doorway.

Mac followed the movement, and jerked his chin towards the door, "This your place? You live here?"

Another step, eyes never leaving Zee's face; he raised his hand raised above his shoulder, and his fingers crooked almost imperceptibly. Lindsay and Angell took synchronised steps behind him. They moved closer.

Zee's eyes wavered from the door, "Yeah, I live here. Got no place else to live, and I cause no trouble. Hear that?" His voice rose; the echo caught on the old walls, straining under age and neglect, "Don't want no trouble, cop. I ain't done nothing wrong."

"You're not in trouble, Zee. We just want you to show us who you found, okay? Are they here?"

They were halfway across the room now, Mac hardly breathing. He took a chance, "Were they hurt? Was whoever you found hurt? Is that their blood on your shirt?"

Hands reached up, clenching round the back of a neck; Zee's face twisted, "I didn't hurt her, okay? I didn't. She was already hurt."

_Stella. She got out… _

_She's hurt._

"_Where is she_?" Every word sounded like machine gun fire. Too loud. Mac found his heart swelling with fear, but modified his voice. Focus. Calm. "Where is she, Zee? Did you bring her here?" Another step. Another guess, "Did you help her?"

"Yeah, I tried to help her." Zee backed further away, "I tried to…"

Only the twitch of a muscle in his cheek betrayed Mac's feelings, "I know you did. You look like a guy who'd try to help people, Zee. And you're not in trouble, okay? I just need to know where she is. I need you to show us, so we can help her too."

He heard Lindsay and Angell's exhalations behind him. They moved another heartbeat closer, close enough for him to feel Lindsay's shoulder behind his. They were less than two feet from the door.

Zee stepped into its blank gap, "What you going to do? You going to put me in jail? No way. No way, cop, you can't do that!"

Mac kept his voice at the same level; controlled, low, even. Serene surface, but a monsoon beneath. She was here. She had to be. They were close, _so close_. Every move closer.

"It's okay, Zee. I told you, I'm not going to arrest you or put you in jail. But it's very important you show us where she is so we can help her."

_Before it's too late._

He slid another foot closer, and Zee's shadow receded through the doorframe, "I swear, I tried to help her…"

A drop of sweat ran from Mac's temple; slid down his cheekbone, off his chin. His vision seemed to be crackling at the edges; but he did not move his eyes. Another step forward, "I know you did. I know you helped her. And you can still help her now."

_It's not too late. It's not…_

He took a breath, "Did you find her outside? Was she by the car?"

Zee's face creased, his hands rubbed up and down his arms, "By the car. Saw it burning, so I ran out and she was lying beside it. I pulled her out the way."

There was a sound behind him. Angell's hand was on his back, and he heard her low murmur, "Keep going Mac. You're doing good."

Some of the terrible weight of hopelessness that had latched onto Mac like a parasite dropped away. He knew for sure now. Stella had not died in the car. The body burned inside it was not hers. She was here.

She was still not safe.

He looked at Zee, and saw strength in the man that he had missed sight of at first glance, "Then what you did was incredibly brave, Zee. You could have been killed. You saved her life, okay? If you hadn't done that, she would have died when it exploded. That makes you a hero in my book."

There was silence for a moment. Zee shook his head, back and forth, his hair flew out, "But I couldn't save her…"

Two more steps forward. Perspiration ran down his back. Mac breathed out, and let the stillness absorb some of the thoughts that were cluttering his mind: the too late, too long, too little time thoughts.

He breathed in, "You saved her from the car. And you brought her here, right? Where you live. Whatever's happened, Zee, you're not in trouble okay? Trust me. But what you need to do now is show us where she is, and we can try and help her as well."

Zee met his eyes, "No trouble?"

Another step, "No trouble. I promise. Is she here?"

A pause, voice dull now, "She's here."

Mac nodded, felt his chest almost implode with the pressure building inside and out, "That's good. That's good, Zee. You need to show us now, okay, wherever she is, you have to show us. And I'm going to trust you, like you're trusting me."

"Okay. I trust you, but… but you have to know, okay, she was hurt bad, and I tried my best. I tried, but…" Eyes joined to his in the moonlight, and they were filled with the night, "You have to believe me."

Another step, "I believe you."

His breath was almost gone; the muscles around his lungs had seized, but he kept walking forward.

Breathe.

Every step exactly the same length.

Breathe.

Lindsay and Angell still behind him, Zee moving backwards as they moved forwards.

Control.

If he slipped now, they had lost it. They had lost Stella.

"You need to show us, Zee, please. You need to take us to her."

Another breath.

"I'll take you."

Zee turned, and with only a glance behind at Lindsay and Angell, their faces as hollow as his, Mac followed him.

They walked in silence now, quick, urgent paces , Zee leading them all. A chill, unwelcome even after the heat of the day, rose from the damp brickwork and soaked into their skin and bones. The sun had not touched the interior, and a miasma suffocated the air; rot and old river water. Desolation.

Through stripes of flayed moonlight, they passed down corridors. Hurrying along, glancing through doors into rooms abandoned to ruin away; windows shattered into silent screams, tottering walls and caving ceilings, exposed to their ribs and femurs. All broken. All empty. No names called in them for years.

All his awareness was fixed on the man in front of them; and the woman they had to find alive. His flashlight jerked fractured orbs on the cement floor. Blood spatter under his feet.

More blood.

Less time.

The corridor stopped. Zee halted at a door falling from its hinges. Mac's consciousness was sucked into what lay beyond: a room in twilight, pale gleams of the moon splashed over the portion of floor he could see. An empty floor.

He heard his own voice with some surprise. It had passed out of his command, "In here, Zee? Is she in here?"

Zee pressed his back against the splintered doorjamb, and put his hand across the entrance, "I have to tell you. You… you gotta trust me on this - I pulled her out and she was alive, but… but she was hurt bad. I… I tried to help her, I carried her in here…" He rubbed his hand across his eyes, "I tried, swear to God…

Mac saw the footprints again in the dirt. Blood splashed on the ground. He carried her. Of course. One set of footprints.

It was his voice speaking again. So calm, "That's how you got blood on your shirt."

Zee's head jerked up and down, fingers twisting the sleeve of his jacket, eyes imploring "Yeah, from her. She… she was bleeding. Couldn't stop it, but I tried, you gotta believe me, I _tried_..."

"I believe you, Zee. I know you tried."

The shot, hours before, a tinnitus in his ears. Still ringing round and round. Blood on the floor. Stella's blood.

Too much blood.

_No; please no, please no…_

"I tried everything…"

"Is she in here?"

Words echoed in the stillness. Noise in his head. Pounding against the walls he had shut himself in with.

Zee's head drooped; his hand fell against his side, removing the barrier to the room. His eyes would not meet theirs, "I left her here. Didn't know what else to do…"

Through the door; a room in darkness, except for slivers of silver through the clefts in the ceiling. Shapes and blurs around the edges, the walls looming black stage flats. There was just enough dimness to show boxes flung against them; crates and wooden barrels decaying helplessly into shapeless lumps; sacks slumped like empty humans skins; a mattress strewn with newspapers in the far corner.

And beside it a heap of fabric. Sheets thrown over something; flung into peaks and folds. Covering, concealing something.

A hand was constricting his throat. Mac found his fingers slipping on the plastic skin of the flashlight.

Zee's voice rose higher, hands knotted in his hair, "She wouldn't wake up… I couldn't wake her…"

Lindsay and Angell were pressed close behind him. Beams from their lights shaking wild spots of light around the room; derelict images flashing into view, gone again.

"What have you done with her?" A stranger speaking his words.

Zee in front of him, eyes despairing, desperation cracking his speech, "I'm sorry… I'm sorry.. I tried to help her, please… I held her in my arms, please believe me, please…"

The beam leaped from Mac's flashlight and bounced crazily round the walls. He gripped it, guided it, forced its corona to where he wanted it. The heap of old material. Laid over something.

Someone.

He saw a hand exposed; moon-white and so still in the sudden glare of light. And then a glimpse of dark curls lying flat on the ground.

Stella.

"I couldn't save her…"

_Stella…_

The flashlight clattered on the floor.

No.

"There was nothing else I could do…"

_No._

He ran.

………………………………_......................_

_Your breath stops. You cross the space before time catches you. The others are lost behind you. _

"_Stella!"_

_Her hand, her face, her body as you pull away what covers her._

"_Oh no, please, no…" _

_Your hand brushes across her face; tallow wax skin; death pale. Cold as the stone she is lying on. You see the damage. You see the blood. Rage. Rage that you want to use to give her life back. It seethes in your blood._

"_Stella…"_

_Eyes closed. No fire. No movement. No life. You see what they have done. The gunshot wound; dark, glistening blood. Her blood. _

_Your hand grabs hers so tightly your own blood stops flowing. Cold. Blood dried on her fingers._

"_Stella, come on, please…"_

_Your fingers on her neck. _

"_Come on…"_

_For longer seconds than you have ever lived, your world teeters on a precipice._

_There is nothing._

_You remember her this morning._

_Nothing. _

_You remember her standing beside you._

_Nothing._

_You remember her smiling, then turning and walking away._

_Nothing…_

_Then there is something._

_A gossamer thread of life under your fingers; the faintest sigh of breathing. And your blood begins to flow again._

………………………………_........................_

Mac breathed. Lindsay clenched his shoulder and he could feel her nails through his shirt.

"Mac… is she…?"

"She's alive."

**I almost finished a paragraph earlier… I hope you enjoyed this. It was a bit of an experiment at the end. I'd love to know what you thought. Please review and let me know! Thank you, Lily x**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Eleventh chapter: thank you VERY MUCH for all previous reviews! I really hope this chapter can live up to them. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to if logged. **

**Thank you to everyone with this on alert, and to _Fat Kat _for your review. Dedicated to _iluvcsi4ever_ on her return - she knows why ;)**

**Thank you to _sarramaks_ for reading**

Lost Letters: Chapter 11

_13th August_

… _I'll be honest with you, as I know I can be: I'm nervous. They've finally trusted me with the 'real' job, so TJ calls it, the one I was telling you about a few days ago. According to him, if I pull this one off, them I'm properly in with them. However, the flip-side is, if I don't, then he's 'not happy' and I can only guess at what that might mean, probably at the least, that I'm out of their grand scheme. I'm beginning to wonder if Joe and I have got ourselves into something we shouldn't have. The more I get to know TJ and Rich, the less I trust them…_

………………………………...

For the first time that he could remember, Sid stood in the morgue and felt absolute loneliness wrap round him as he paused over the body that Hawkes, Adam and he had examined in Central Park hours earlier. He was alone in the building: it often happened; he worked late and before he was aware of it, the background sounds of the people who lived and worked above and around him gradually ceased and were replaced by the un-living presence of the building. It never bothered him usually, and he enjoyed the existence of glass, concrete and steel around him, and listened to the music that played itself in his head as he uncovered the secrets of the once-living who lay in front of him. But tonight was different; tonight he felt the lack of life in the body before him and shivered as he felt time and mortality creep round him and whisper in his ears. He had heard no more about Stella; but Sheldon as he left had promised to call him as soon as there was anything from the scene. About Danny, there was still nothing else to be told; he remained comatose and in a critical condition.

Sid's heart was tired, and he moved around the morgue lethargically, stopping and catching himself every few minutes standing with a piece of equipment in his hand, and not remembering why or where he had picked it up. He would stare at it for a moment, then replace it and continue. But he seemed to be making no progress. And the silence and stillness became more arduous. The hour had become later than he realised, and a flicker of guilt passed through him when he realised that he had not called his wife; but tonight was her bridge night, and he expected that she would understand, when they managed to catch sight of each other long enough to have a conversation.

Sheldon had still not called.

"No news may not be bad news." Sid murmured, trying to shake himself out of the melancholy trance he had slipped into again too easily, "Come on, Hammerback, focus. Do what you have to do whilst you're waiting."

The body of the young man in the lake lay before him, also waiting. His skin had dried to a dull grey against the stainless steel; the bullet hole in his forehead was a ragged pink glimpse inside his skull, and Sid paused, considering it carefully.

"_Seems_ fairly obvious…"

He began the incision into the chest cavity; pulling back and exposing what lay within; uncoiling and removing; cutting deeper. There was nothing unusual, nothing unique. Until his scalpel blade incised through the thin walls of the stomach, and struck something that resisted it. "Curious…"

Sid laid the tool down carefully and with delicate fingers pulled apart the slippery edges of tissue, and reached inside. Something hard and knobble-edged met his fingers, and he drew it out carefully so as not to rupture the delicate muscle.

It was not what he was expecting to find inside the stomach of a corpse: a small, metal key with a square torque and a short blade cut into a few irregular teeth. It caused Sid to delve into his memory as to where he had seen a similar key before. He held it slightly above eye level, his head angled as he scrutinised it, and then he remembered: on arrival in New York years before, he had taken ownership of a Post Office box. The clerk at the time; a petite, very dark-skinned woman he recalled, who wore a tiny sapphire in her nose and silver bangles on her wrist, had handed over to him a key that was almost identical in shape and size to the one he now held.

"Curious indeed…" He pronounced, and laying it carefully down he went to find his phone. But before he could reach it, it rang; showing the number he had been hoping for flashing on the screen.

………………………………...

Whilst they searched, Flack was functioning on the memory of adrenaline; powering his heartbeat, keeping himself and everyone around him doing what they had to, with nothing but the last gasps of energy. When Hawkes arrived at the scene, accompanied by Adam, he sighted them immediately, and went flying over to brief them. Adam's face was powerless to conceal his misery and revulsion; Hawkes gave away his feelings only in his quick, sharp movements; and the way he let the car door fly with a slam that shook it.

Flack gave them the latest details tersely, including Mac's theory and evidence.

At that, Adam's face lifted, sinking Flack's heart: the confidence the younger man had could so easily be destroyed, as his own was with every minute that passed.

"If Mac's found evidence then surely…"

But the sight of the car crushed the rest of his sentence out of existence. All three stopped and stood in a silence that none of them could end. Until their radios buzzed into life: Angell's voice came through, and she gave them all the news they had tried not to hope too much for. Found. Alive. And they began to swing away from despair.

The ground suddenly swarmed with people, and Flack found himself leading them. Not for a moment losing hold of the situation. It took minutes to turn around the leaden feeling of a futile search, to the light-headed delight of success. He recognised Angell immediately as she emerged from the buildings on the far side of the ground where he had left her, Mac and Lindsay earlier. But the gravity in her face, as her features became visible through the dusk, turned his joy to a sickening feeling as she hurried over. He crossed the gap to her in a few long-legged strides, and she drew him onwards, answering his question before he asked, with a tight-lipped shake of her head.

"Don, it's bad, I'm sorry. Gun shot wound to the abdomen; and if it happened at the scene this morning, that's nearly seven hours untreated and a serious amount of blood loss; probably smoke inhalation from the car fire too. She's not looking good. Mac got a weak pulse, but..."

Her words rained blows on him. Anger and fear biled in his throat.

"_Bastards!_ Damn _bastards!_ I swear to God, Jess, when we catch up with them…"

"I know, Don, I know…"

They were walking in unison, arms bumping together in their hurry; the little touch grounding him from the rocketing fury he felt at her news. But he could not unclench his fists, even if he wanted to.

"Where…?"

"Inside the warehouse. Mac's bringing her out; said he wasn't going to wait for the paramedics to come and find us - I had to agree with him, it's a maze in there. And we had someone with us who we need to treat as carefully as possible…"

"Who?"

Her face changed to show a blend of emotions, "The guy we need to thank for pulling Stella away from the car and saving her life; but who also nearly revoked that good work with what he did afterwards."

They had almost reached the door Angell had appeared from, when Flack saw another two figures pass over the threshold into the moonlight; Lindsay and a tall, skinny man walking close behind her; head bowed, but flicking constant glances from side to side. He seemed to be almost pressed into Lindsay's back; hiding himself, matching his walk leg for leg with her, trying to merge his shadow with hers. Lindsay's head was also down, her eyes hidden by the bangs of her hair, as she made her way over.

"Flack." She squeezed his hand briefly before dropping it, and moving once more in front of the man whose stance suggested he was trying to shrink himself out of sight.

When Flack turned with one more question on his lips, he was hushed by Angell, "I'll tell you the why on him later, Don. It's complicated, like him."

Their pace increased; Flack feeling the pressure of everyone else close behind him as they moved forward in a phalanx. So he pushed ahead, breaking away from Angell as Mac finally came into sight, holding the person he had been so desperately afraid he had last seen in the most horrific death. Only then, seeing her easily identifiable curls hanging over Mac's arm, was he finally able to accept that the body in the car, burned beyond recognition, was not Stella's. The rush of that truth sent him running to confirm the further truth that she was still living.

As he reached Mac though, one rapid glance at him and at Stella lying in his arms, sent him plummeting into doubt. When he saw the bloody mess she was in, the words jerked out before he could stop them, "_Hell,_ Mac, please, tell me…"

"She's alive."

His face was almost as ashen as Stella's, and his voice as lifeless as she looked.

"Oh Jesus, _Stella_…"

Flack, clawing for words amidst his horror and fury, and hardly able to believe Mac, clutched her cold and unresponsive hand, and could only find a platitude he had never hoped so much would be true. "She'll be okay. She'll be okay, Mac. We've got her, she'll be okay..."

There was no time to say any more. He let her fingers slip out of his, as both she and Mac were swept away in the glare and rush of people and lights. Angell came and stood silently at his side, but even after their departure, the noise and lights did not stop blaring in the front of his mind. So much noise, so many people. But they had found the one person they wanted. And Flack also realised that he had the comfort of one person who he knew would be returning to his side later.

After the renewal of their promise of 'later', whenever that might now be, although they were both determined that it _would_ be, Angell gave him a few brief but resonant words and left with Lindsay and the man identified only as 'Zee'. Then she was gone too.

And now it was all over. Flack stood in the aftermath of the activity that had hurricaned around him. He had remained the calm, human centre, but it had taken its toll, and he needed a few minutes out of time to gather himself back together; before he left to fight the tasks he now faced.

The storm had blown itself out and dissipated, leaving just a few souls gradually dispersing into the night. Only remains were left on the waste ground now, along with a maelstrom of footprints - any individual prints had been obliterated by their sheer number; his own included.

He looked around and marvelled at how, in such a short amount of time, the pendulum of their emotions had swung from despair to hope and back so many times. It held on hope for the moment, but he felt the weight of its momentum. Danny and Stella were both alive, which was more than he had dared to believe earlier; but whether they could keep both of them so was still uncertain. Flack rubbed his hand across his eyes, burning not just from fatigue, and felt his gut twist in anger.

But it was time to leave, and focus the anger where it would be most useful. Hawkes and Adam had left only minutes before; following the remains of the car and the remains inside it. Flack experienced only a momentary guilty twinge at the relief he felt knowing that it was someone else had who died in the car: if Mac's theory was correct, and the body was one of the men who had so brutally hurt two people he cared very much about, then there was a part of Don Flack that was not ashamed to admit satisfaction at their fate. Who said there was no justice?

His thoughts were bleak as he walked towards his car; justice would not do much towards helping his friends at this point, and there was nothing more he could do now for them, other than hold them in his heart and mind.

One last look around: deserted ground; echoing buildings left to brood and harbour their ghosts and empty rooms; the sluggish oil slick of the river under the moon and the cooling air. There was little left to show anyone had been here; just dust and ashes and footprints. All that ever would be left in the end. He walked away; the echo of his footsteps the last sound in the air.

………………………………...

Zee drained his second cup of coffee, containing enough sugar to rot teeth at a glance. Angell watched him, whilst also casting a discreet look at Lindsay. She was someone the homicide detective knew relatively little, having worked few cases with her. She felt ashamed that the most she knew about Lindsay Monroe was her home state, the terrible crime she had survived and her connection with Danny Messer.

Angell felt, not awkward, but less sure of how to approach Lindsay than she would the other CSIs. Even Mac, though sometimes taciturn, was someone she never had any difficulty working and having a frank discussion with. She guessed though that Lindsay did not share her feelings easily: after they had found Stella, the walls had closed up again, and Angell had seen the fragility of her defences against the threatening emotions.

But Lindsay was holding on, and she admired her for that. She knew Stella was a friend as well as a colleague, and her situation added to the worries Lindsay already had for Danny with whom she shared an even closer bond. Angell could only imagine how she might be feeling. And she had no wish to ever be in that position. She shivered suddenly.

"Are you okay?" Lindsay's gentle voice opened her eyes, and she smiled hurriedly.

"Yeah, I'm good." She drew a deep breath, and asked, "Are you?"

Lindsay gave a short laugh, and her eyes darkened to near-black as her lips moved tremulously, "Hanging in there. It's just... just hard, you know, not knowing anything, and I'm kind of filling in the gaps here with worst… worst case scenarios." For a moment her defences were down, and Angell saw the depths of panic through her eyes, but then Lindsay turned away, and took sole possession of her burden of fears again.

Zee suddenly smacked his empty cup down on the table and with narrow eyes, asked them, "You sure she ain't dead? I didn't kill her? I didn't kill Stella?"

With a sigh, Angell answered him with as much patience as she had the first time, "No, you didn't kill Stella. She's at the hospital but she's not dead…"

As far as she knew, she had to acknowledge painfully, not daring to glance at Lindsay who had stiffened at her side. The last they had heard, an hour ago, was that she was still in surgery. They both knew that the injuries she had received and the delay in treatment meant her hold on life could give way too easily. As could Danny's.

But there was nothing they could do themselves at present, except persevere with their witness. Angell leaned forwards, and laid her hands on the table, "Zee, I know you've had a fright, and gone through one hell of a time, and the last few hours have been very stressful for you… but I have to tell you again that we really need to know some things from you. You're very important to us. Do you understand what I'm saying? The reason why you're important is that you're a witness to what happened to Stella. We think she was hurt by two men who killed someone, and we think that one of the two men killed the other one as well. So what we need you to do is to think back really carefully to this afternoon, to just before you helped Stella, and tell us as much as you can remember."

Her words were a variation on the ones both she and Lindsay had already used several times to the man sitting before them. So far, they had received no new information: he had seen the fire and had run out; when he saw there was someone in the car, he had pulled her out. That was where he stopped. Anything before or after that seemed to have disappeared into smoke and dreams. His hands seized the cardboard cup, and began pinching the edges convulsively as he replied. His words were also a variation on the same ones he had used already.

Angell leaned back in the chair and her hands flopped at her side. Lindsay looked across at her, and the two women made a decision.

………………………………...

A couple of hours later and Zee was at a safe house for the rest of the night, after some protest, and Lindsay and Angell had given each other, with complete awareness of the irony, a 'good night' in the dawn's light. Angell going to meet her fellow homicide detective, whilst Lindsay was headed to the hospital where Danny lay.

With faltering steps, Lindsay reached the ward and the room where he was, and found herself unable to move. She stood outside the window, looking in, and could not lift her feet from the floor. But then the door opened and Danny's father was there in the gap, and his hand was held out to her, breaking the spell and drawing her in. She took his hand, and they both entered the room. The door closed softly behind them.

………………………………...

He was not sure what made him glance in as he passed. It was early morning, and Riaz Delgardo was at the end of a long shift and his thoughts were already beyond the hospital and into his apartment, and a long, cool shower to wash off the gluey August heat. But something made his head turn and look into the ICU room at the end of the corridor, whose door was slightly ajar. Riaz slowed as he walked past, soft-shoed feet making no sound on the tiles, and saw a dark haired man who looked even more crumpled and exhausted than he felt. The man was angled into a chair drawn up to the bed; gripping tightly the hand of its occupant, a woman with curling hair, whose eyes were closed and still. The only sounds in the room were those of the machines over and around the woman, and the soft rise and fall of her assisted breathing.

It was a sight he had seen many times before; the watcher and the watched; and he wondered briefly who and why and how. But there was no time to ask; he was leaving and home comforts were drawing him. As he picked up his pace again though, Riaz called out a quick, 'good morning', but the man did not seem to hear; and his eyes did not turn away from his vigil for a second. Riaz walked on, and left no sound or memory of himself behind.

**I hope you enjoyed this - please review and let me know either way, all thoughts welcome! Next chapter up soon. Thanks, Lily x**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Twelfth chapter: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! I hope this chapter can also live up to them. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to if logged. Sorry this is later than intended – it took a while to write.**

**Thank you to _Fat Kat _for your review.**

**Thank you for various discussions: _Blue Shadowdancer_ (And for kindly reading this first)_, Lost in New York, Mellow Girl, sarramaks, chrysalis escapist, chickadee063, Shining Zephyr_**

Lost Letters: Chapter 12

_12th August_

… _I'm just waiting today, there's really not much else to do until Joe gets back from seeing TJ about various matters. He tells me that they're going to be asking me to do something tomorrow. If I succeed, then both of us are safely in their employment. I don't know exactly yet what they're going to ask me to do, but I think it has something to do with some lost property. They're offering me a substantial amount if I succeed too - enough for me to get somewhere more permanent and maybe move out of the city. If that happens Joe and I have a plan for somewhere together. If I don't succeed, well then I guess I'll have to think of something else. And wait a little longer…_

………………………………_..._

Still drifting, still waiting in a white space that could not quite be called anywhere as yet. There was no sound and no time; no movement and no sensation. Just being somewhere, being someone. Alone. Waiting.

………………………………...

"Lindsay?"

He saw her jump and jerk slightly in her chair, hands fluttering at her neck as he entered the room.

"Oh! Oh, Sheldon, I'm sorry. You…"

"Startled you? I'm sorry. Only stopping by briefly, Lindsay, to see how you're both doing."

He eased his way in fully, inching the door shut, but failing to close it without a squeal from the hinges, and apologised again with a grimace, "Sorry…"

Lindsay gave him a sad smile, "Doesn't matter. Danny's not going to complain about you making any noise, and neither am I."

That was what hit Hawkes then; the absence of noise. The absence of Danny's presence, always audible even if he wasn't visible - whether it was his shoes striking the corridors in the lab as he darted from one place to the next, his laugh as Adam entertained him, usually unintentionally, or his strident vocals as he called out to his colleagues. That was what was wrong. Danny was somewhere trapped inside the still form that lay on the bed under pristine sheets, living for the moment in reliance on machinery, tubes and equipment. In a hushed room. Not himself.

Hawkes looked away from his closed eyes and immobile face, and took up a seat across the bed from Lindsay. Her head had sunk down again, and her own eyes were invisible under lashes swept across pale cheeks. She did not speak, but instead plucked at a corner of the sheet. Leaving it up to him to break free from the silence.

"How is he? Have you been told anything more?"

Her lips barely moved as she answered, "Nothing more. They patched him up - his leg, the broken ribs and his wrist, and his doctors say they're mending. The internal injuries he got are healing too, they stopped the bleeding, and they took out his spleen. He's doing okay without that. Not something he's ever mentioned before as being important…" She gave a soft sniff of laughter, then twisted the corner of the sheet into a spiral, as her face returned to its sorrow, "But it's the fracture to his skull they're most worried about, Sheldon. The concussion's a bad one…" Tears beaded from under her lashes, "They don't know when he'll wake up. It could be tomorrow, it could be two weeks from now, two months, two years… They don't know. And… and I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything to help."

Her fingers had wrapped the sheet so tightly round themselves that her skin rivalled the colour of the material; white banded by red. Hawkes moved his chair round and set it down next to her, close enough for his shoulder to touch hers.

Gently, he unwrapped her fingers, "Your sitting here with Danny is as much help as he needs from you right now, Lindsay, and you're doing that, you're here with him. And when you go back on shift, the job you do there is going to help him and Stella too. And if I know Danny, I know he's not the guy to be waiting around in hospital for too long."

She crushed her lips together and swept her hand across her eyes, nodding mutely.

The movement of the lights on the monitor and the soft sigh of Danny's breathing lulled them both for a moment.

Until Hawkes roused himself and turned again to Lindsay, "You're here on your own?"

Her fingers nipped at the fabric again, "For now. I persuaded his parents to go get some sleep for a couple of hours, rest and freshen up. I've got a few more hours until my shift starts - I'm meeting Angell and we're going to have another try at interviewing Zee…"

The name triggered something, but he wanted confirmation, "He the guy who…?"

"Yeah." Her mouth and chin crinkled, eyes still not raised, "If we'd been any later…" She shook her head, "I can't think about that. I have to keep telling myself that we weren't too late. And that it really wasn't his fault."

Hawkes nodded, with the empathy of shared thoughts: he had seen the state Stella was in when Mac brought her out of the warehouse, as well as a glimpse of the man who had hidden in Lindsay's shadow before she and Angell took him away.

There was a brief silence, then finally, Lindsay lifted her head and let him see the grey smudges under her lashes and the red clouds in her eyes.

"Have you seen Stella?"

Hawkes paused for a moment before answering, well aware of Lindsay's fragility at present; he guessed that she was still finding it very hard to forgive herself for not calling in the car immediately after it had almost run her over, especially knowing now, as they all did, what difference it would have made, and still could make to Stella to have been found sooner. Then that had been followed by the news he had been forced to tell her over the phone about Danny's injuries, also caused by the driver of the car. His brown eyes met hers and wondered how much more she could take.

He chose his words carefully, "Yes, and I saw and spoke to Mac briefly, before I came up here…"

"How is she?" Her fingers stopped in the act of pulling up a pyramid of white sheet. She would see any lie in his eyes.

Another pause. He found himself running his hand over the sheets at the side of the bed leaving a rut from his fingertips, "Stella's holding on…"

Lindsay's eyes were filmed with tears, "What does 'holding on' really translate as, Sheldon? I need to know. I know little enough about Danny's prognosis as it is, so please don't keep me any more in the dark, okay?"

He sighed tiredly, "She got through surgery, which was almost more than they hoped for - it was probably only the fact it wasn't a through and through that stopped her from bleeding to death before she was found, and that the bullet didn't hit any major organs."

"That's good then, right?" Hope crept into her voice, and showed itself in her hands as they clutched the sheets, pulling them up, wrinkling the edges.

Hawkes smoothed the ridges he had made with his fingers in the soft cotton, "Partly. But she still lost a lot of blood which has left her very weak, and it's major trauma to recover from, with the added complication of the smoke and toxins she inhaled. That caused some damage and she's needing help breathing. It's going to take her time to recover, Lindsay. She's a long way from being out of danger yet."

He remembered Mac's face as he relayed Stella's condition and how there was almost nothing behind his eyes: Mac, it seemed to him, had become a negative quantity; with eyes that were not alive, skin that had no colour and a voice that had no emotion. The loss - temporary, only temporary, Hawkes told himself again - of two of his team had stolen life from him. The two people in his team who had most life, and who gave the most of it to Mac, were now hanging onto it by their fingertips.

Hawkes came back to the quiet in the room again. That had struck him too as he stood with Mac and had seen with sorrow that threatened to well and spill over, how still and silent and lacking in life Stella was lying in a room amongst the equipment that was helping to keep her alive. That was wrong. Where Stella was, where Danny was; it was never still and silent, and there was always life.

"But she _will_ recover."

His hand found Lindsay's and covered it tightly, "You know how strong she is, and how fiercely she fights any battle. She won't give up. I told Mac that. And I'm telling you the same about Danny." A smile found its way to his lips, "You better tell him that, he'll take it better from you, Lindsay."

She placed her other hand on top of his and they shared the warmth of contact. Light glistened suddenly on her cheeks, "I hope so, Sheldon. I keep telling myself that."

There was no more to say. They sat for a few more minutes; three people in a room; two of them there for each other, and for the one who lay unknowing of their presence and of himself.

………………………………...

Sid had been in the morgue before the sun had broken free from the tops of the skyscrapers. It was always his favourite time of day when the air breathed its first, and night lightened to grey then blue then pale. He had barely left the lab for a couple of hours snatched sleep and a glimpse at his wife's sleeping shape under the bedclothes, before he had returned to work.

Now it was early afternoon and he was waiting again. Since the call he had received last night telling him that Stella had been found, he had heard no more details about how she was; other than that both she and Danny were in a critical condition. As soon as he was able to, he would visit and see them for himself.

The doors opened and the man he had been waiting for entered.

Hawkes pushed his way through the door and came to rest with his palms down on the edge of the autopsy table.

"Sid."

"How are you, Sheldon?"

Hawkes's eyebrow's flashed upwards at his question, "How am I? Well, I've not been hit by a car or shot so I'd say I'm doing pretty good in comparison…" He rubbed the back of his head, "Man. Sid, I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time believing how we've been turned upside down in a day; how from one crime scene, we end up with two of our team fighting for their lives in hospital."

He had voiced exactly how Sid was feeling, "Neither can I. Neither can any of us."

As he had entered the building and as he rode up in the elevators, Sid had noted the looks of sympathy, and curiosity people who also worked in the building had given him. Those who knew who he was and where he worked. And there were many as he often stopped and smiled and talked to people and started every morning with at least one greeting. But it seemed today as if they were somehow afraid to approach him, knowing what had happened to the team. For the first time that morning, no one had said so much as 'hello'. Eyes had turned his way, and had turned away again; mouths had opened and then closed, and their owners had hurried away. Afraid to ask.

He was not, "How are they both? Really." He knew Hawkes had been to the hospital that morning.

Hawkes, in the language of medicine they both spoke and understood, told him exactly, and it sent Sid's heart crashing to the ground again. The morgue became airless and turgid, and his body felt weighted by anchors of sadness. They both stood for a moment without speaking and Sid remembered two days ago Danny bouncing through the doors to ask him something; they had got into a conversation about sports, and Sid's lack of interest in them, and it had led Danny to offer a promise of an outing to a Yankees game. He determined there and then that, sooner rather than later, he was going to hold him to that promise.

"You said you had something to show me?" Hawkes finally prompted, and Sid returned to the present, pressing his fists down on the table to move himself again.

"I do, yes. Several things actually. First of all, three bullets, one from each victim."

Sid moved over to the first of the three bodies laid out before him: the victim at the first crime scene of yesterday; the young woman with bobbed black hair and brown eyes that stared up at the light unblinking. A Jane Doe with possibilities - he knew as they all did about the letters.

"COD for our first vic was the shot to the forehead. I retrieved the bullet from deep inside the cerebral cortex. It would have killed her instantly. No other marks or injuries other than from the impact when she hit the concrete." He held out to Hawkes the first bullet in his collection. "Now to our second vic, our gentleman in the lake, more on which very shortly. COD also the shot to the forehead, same depth of penetration with the bullet, same lack of other injuries. However as I will come to, he did have one extra surprise inside him which I know you'll be fascinated by." Sid looked over the top of his glasses as he handed over the second bullet, and saw with satisfaction Hawkes's look of curiosity overcoming his gravity.

"Sid, whatever else you've got, give it up already and stop with the cryptic hints. _What_ did you find inside him?"

He laid his coup de theatre in Hawkes's outstretched hand, and shared his theory.

"A post office box key?" The younger man's eyebrows all but disappeared into his close-cropped hair, "Inside a dead guy? You've got to be kidding me, right?"

Sid gave a soft chuckle and savoured the lighter moment, "I've taken some strange things out of corpses in my time, Sheldon, never a key before now though. Although there was one man who had, it seemed, a predilection for, shall we say, _unusual_ activity in the bedroom, and who had managed to insert…"

"Please stop there, Sid. I only need the key. _Really_ only the key." Hawkes cleared his throat, and Sid wondered again if he would ever manage to tell anyone the whole of that anecdote. At the time of trying to entertain Mac with it, the head of the lab had received an urgent page and had left the morgue rather hurriedly.

Hawkes had another question for him, "You get anywhere on the ID of the body in the car?"

"I did." Sid clipped his glasses back together, and withdrew the cover from the third body. The victim inside the car. "Male vic, approximately 6 feet tall, allowing for bone shrinkage from the heat of the fire. Age uncertain at present. Also shot in the forehead, and I was able to retrieve the remains of the bullet. Beyond that, I can't tell you much yet, other than that there were no other obvious injuries - no fractures for instance." He handed over the last bullet, and Hawkes took it. Three bullets, three bodies. "As you know, I can't get an ID from dental records unless it's for comparison. You may need to do a facial reconstruction." Seeing Hawkes's head droop onto his chest, he added as he clasped his arm for a moment, "But you know who it won't be, Sheldon."

Hawkes nodded, "I know, I know. With Aiden… and then last night when Adam and I got there and saw the car, all I could think was that it was happening again. And even when Stella was found I couldn't stop thinking, what if Mac hadn't been so stubborn and insistent that they searched for her…" The horror in his eyes matched Sid's, "We might never have found her."

The same thought had haunted Sid and had created nameless, formless nightmares that had woken him slathered in perspiration.

He opened his eyes wide to dispel the memory, "But she _was _found, Sheldon. That's all that matters."

"For now." Hawkes nodded with a sigh, "Thanks, Sid. For everything. I need to compare the striations on the bullets, see if I can get a match. Though I suspect the ones from the woman from the first scene, and the body in the car will likely match. As will the bullet they took out of Stella." He began to back towards the door, evidence raised in his hand to emphasise his words, "And the key. I'll ask Adam, and Lindsay when she gets here, to have a look at it and see if we can prove your theory, and see if there's any way to identify it. If we can, then it's a case of whether we have a chance in hell of finding one post office box amongst the thousands in the city."

"But that's what we do." Sid offered Hawkes, "We find things. We find things no one else can."

………………………………...

Mac waited. He sat and his breathing matched the measured rise and fall of Stella's; his for hers. And he sat and watched the shadows that waited in the corners of the room. Watched as they crept too close to where she lay. He would not leave her side until he knew she was safe from them. They had been there the moment they had found her; they had stayed with her all the way to the hospital; they had waited with him in the corridors and they still waited for her now and drained the light from both of them. He had seen them hovering round Danny too; but he had taken the hands his parents offered when he stepped into the room and said nothing at all about what he saw waiting for him. Shadows of too much damage, shadows of never waking, and shadows of letting go a too-fragile hold. They would come no closer though, to either of them, he would not let that happen.

His fingers twined more tightly around Stella's, pulling her back from the never after. Time was all she needed. Mac waited.

**Thank you for reading, please review and let me know what you thought. I hope it was okay, I thought it would be good to catch up a bit more with the characters. Thank you, Lily x**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 13: THANK YOU VERY MUCH for all previous reviews! I hope you like this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - all very welcome, and replied to if logged. I'm sorry this is a bit late again.**

**Thank you to _sarramaks_ for reading and suggestions.**

**Dedicated to _Shining Zephyr _with thanks.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 13

Early evening. The streets swelled and the sidewalks heaved and rose with the exodus from the end of the working day. Buildings tided out their humanity back into the perspiring air; then rested and readied themselves for the morning when they would pull them back in again. The never-ending cycle of the city.

People moved slowly and stupidly. They complained and wrangled with each other to get back to their air-conditioned comforts as swiftly as possible; they longed to stop being 'us' and become 'me' for a few precious hours; they snatched water from the dozens of vendors offering limpid oases, careless of the ice cubes that bounced out of the containers as bottles were dragged free and limp bills from damp hands were exchanged. Ice cubes that gleamed and glossed into silky pools of water, and shimmered away into the sidewalks.

At each intersection, individuals broke away into stores and apartment blocks, but the accumulation continued undiminished. People moved, and a little undercurrent moved amongst them. It swirled past arms and knocked purses off shoulders then was gone again; it bumped briefcases into knees and disappeared before the indignant 'Hey!' had left lips. But no one saw anyone.

Rich swept onwards and stopped at a news kiosk. The early evening editions were baled on the sidewalk and he peeled one off the top stack, and handed money over: coins that had warmed in his palms and left them stinking of metal and the residues of hundreds of New Yorkers whose hands had passed over the dimes and quarters; hands that had rubbed them, patinaed them, grasped and released them. Money rattled through his fingers too easily, but this was a necessary outlay.

The vendor dropped the coins into the bulging wallet around his middle, and tossed change over wordlessly, already taking money from the next customer, transaction over. He stepped away from the stand, already forgotten, as more customers grabbed papers off the pile.

Pressed between the side of the kiosk and a phone-box occupied by a gesticulating man who was attracting enough attention from passers by to detract it from him, he shook open his paper. The faintly vinegar smell of newsprint rose from the pages and it smeared onto his fingertips as he flipped through. It didn't take long to find what he was looking for; and even less time to skim through the article whose story he had created. The photograph the NYPD had released of the burned-out car caused a grin to twist onto his lips, but as he read more closely, the grin became a rictus. He read the article again as the noise of the streets faded out. His evening and his outlook altered very suddenly.

Rich folded the newspaper into a thin wedge and rammed it into his back pocket. Not only was the man he had run down still alive and a potential witness, but so too was the woman who had looked right into his eyes; risen from the certain death he thought he had left her to. Not certain enough. Along with the other man and woman who had been at the scene, it meant there were four pairs of eyes that should never have seen him, and four voices that could speak and identify him. It added unpleasantly to what he already knew; that the whole of the NYPD was now gunning for him; and it would be very little time before TJ was also searching for him, whoever he became, demanding to know why there were several crucial details he had not been told. Death sidled up to him and stayed at his back as he slipped into the crowd. But he took it with him as he took the names, identities and information he had read in the newspaper, and he remembered something he had said to Jake. Blood on his hands. Rich was not long for the city streets - his next identity was already forming - but there were things that had to be finished before his next transformation. Blood on his hands. There would be more before long; that he was certain of.

………………………………...

_11th August_

… _I'm tired and it's too hot. Even at night the sun doesn't seem to go away. Joe doesn't have any problem sleeping, and once he's asleep, there's no waking him. Don't think I haven't tried in the early hours when I'm lying wide awake. Last night of course, I was worrying about things. There are just too many things happening at the moment. I know that Joe is going to see TJ tomorrow, and that it's about something pretty important. That makes me nervous. The very first time I met TJ I just had a feeling that he was someone we really shouldn't have gotten to know. It's too late now though of course, we're in for the ride, whatever happens…_

………………………………...

"Lindsay! How's Danny?" Angell hailed the brown-haired detective as she crossed the parking lot. Looking more closely at her in the early evening light, she noted the wear and exhaustion in Lindsay's face, and asked gently, "No change?"

Lindsay's turned down mouth and creased forehead answered before her words, "He's not going to be waking up any time soon."

"You've come from the hospital?" They fell into step.

"Yeah. His parents are there until I can get back. We're kind of taking it in shifts…" She gave a half-smile, "Flack's headed there at some point. He called me earlier, so he's probably there now."

"He told me. And that he was going to try and persuade Mac to go home for a few hours."

Lindsay nodded, "Flack's a good friend. To all of us."

They walked silently the rest of the way to the building; Angell's light stride taking her ahead, whilst Lindsay's footsteps began to lag.

Angell waited for her at the door, and her concern grew as Lindsay almost stumbled up the step. She caught her elbow before she could lose her balance, and tried to make light of it, "I'm guessing you didn't get much sleep last night?"

Lindsay leaned heavily on the door for a moment, eyes turned down, "Not much. But it doesn't matter." She pushed onwards into the entrance hall.

Angell sighed inwardly. Guessing that Lindsay was pulled from all sides at the moment; wanting to be at Danny's side; wanting to do her job and find out all they could from Zee; and, as she herself was, wanting everything to be back as it had been two days ago. But it wasn't. The last two days had happened, and they had to deal with the events of them. And they needed to take care of themselves to do so. Lindsay and Mac, she more than suspected, were not doing that.

She plunged into her next sentence, "Lindsay, you need to get some sleep you know? You'll be no good to Danny, the case, or to anyone else if you don't. I'm telling you that as a concerned colleague."

Lindsay stopped. For a moment her back was to Angell, who bit her lip and wondered if she had stepped over Lindsay's carefully drawn lines.

Then she swung round to face her, and there was a quiet, stubborn sadness in her face, "I appreciate your concern, Detective Angell. But… I'm fine. I'm fine because I have to be. I can sleep at the hospital and I'll maybe get a few hours later tonight at home. Really." She gave her a small smile, "I'm in need of a strong cup of coffee though right now. Especially if Zee's in the same frame of mind as yesterday." With that she strode on down the corridor.

Angell followed close behind, knowing that the conversation had been very clearly ended by Lindsay with the message: _please leave me alone_.

It didn't take much to recognise that Lindsay was stuck together at the moment only by determination and no other choice, and that if she pushed her any harder, she would crumble. That would do no one any good, so for now, she held what she thought inside her head, and determined to talk to Don as soon as she could.

She reached their destination just behind Lindsay. A small room, overfilled with a cup-ring stained table and three chairs, waited for them. The chairs had started out upholstered in smart, creamy cotton, but were now beige and shabby with arms that were flecked with fingerprints and shone greasily at the ends, where a hundred palms and fingers had clutched and rubbed them. Despite the muggy evening heat that still hugged the city, the turquoise walls and green carpet held no warmth, and Angell shuddered slightly and felt her bare arms goose-pimple. The room also possessed a lingering odour, probably absorbed into the walls Angell decided, of sour milk and coffee. Suddenly any thirst for a drink had passed.

She lowered herself into one of the chairs, touching as little as possible of the fabric. It was one of the hazards of being a detective - furniture that did not even come close to the same hygiene and cleanliness requirements that she had herself. During her years in the NYPD she had sat on many a chair and sofa that made her squirm, and bolt for a quick change as soon as possible. This chair at least was dry. She shuddered again at another vivid memory. Lindsay had perched herself on the very edge of the seat and was sitting with her back curved and her elbows resting on her pressed together knees, fingers laced round them.

They had only a few moments to wait before the door opened and Zee entered, paper cup of coffee in his hand, dressed in fresh clothes and with hair that now fluffed and gleamed. His face shone clean and lighter and the change in his appearance and demeanour was very apparent. There was light in his eyes, and the grey and grime that had been trapped in the grains of his skin was gone. His shoulders were not quite so defensively hunched and his hands were relaxed at his sides, rather than crossed over his chest. Lindsay caught Angell's eye briefly, and both their eyebrows raised. They shared the same hope.

………………………………...

Danny's mother watched her son as she had watched so many times before in his childhood. All the times when he, oblivious in sleep, had lain sprawled across his bed, sheets and pillows askew and she had stood in the doorway and just watched. Always smiling, even after a day when he had charged yelling along the sidewalks, or had dodged a yellow cab for the hundredth time in one afternoon, so it felt like. She had always smiled when she watched him sleep, and had picked up his glasses from the floor amongst the detritus in his room of baseball gloves, bats, and inside out clothes and stood for a few quiet moments with them in her hand. And now she sat beside him, his glasses in her hand again; watching him lying under un-crumpled sheets, and pillows that aligned with mathematical precision against the head of the bed. But this time she could not smile.

………………………………...

Mrs Adams was not worried. Not yet anyway. But she could be worried soon. It had been almost two days since she had caught sight of Rita, and there was a troubled feeling inside her, making its presence increasingly felt. Joshua had sprung up the steps at his usual time for greeting their young neighbour that morning, but had returned minutes later highly disgruntled and empty-mouthed and made his own disappearance into the nooks and crannies of only he knew where.

The day had stretched on. Another day of besieging heat when even the secure shade of her basement courtyard had been compromised and the air had pressed scorching hands onto her skin, and crushed her lungs so she gasped and fought for breath in the oven temperature. The air-conditioning in her apartment was now broken, and knowing that Rita's had still not been fixed, there was nowhere left to go. So she sat in the furthest, darkest corner of her yard, her back against the frying bricks and was reminded that too many summers had passed for her; so many she had almost lost track of their number.

Her pipe knocked against her hip as she shifted in her deckchair to find a comfortable position, and with slow fingers, she pulled it out. There was no comfort to be had: reaching for her tobacco, she remembered with a sigh that she had run out, and it was a long, hot walk to the nearest store.

But Rita; no sight of her since the morning she had flown out to post some more of her letters, and no sound from her apartment since the previous evening when she had heard the front door slam twice. The second time had been as Mrs Adams was heaving herself into bed at a late hour - the heat was disturbing her sleep more than usual. Too many things to think about.

She looked up quickly, the burglary still a distressing memory, as something scuffled on the steps above her. But she felt her heart pound in relief when the familiar shape of Joshua emerged from a patch of shade, and stood up to address him in mock-severity.

"Well now, Joshua-boy. And where have you been hiding your furry self? Given up on me had you? Or out looking for your Rita-girl, is that it?"

He blinked slowly at her from his position on the top step, then with a growl, he curled himself into a comma and closed his eyes.

Mrs Adams curled her lip, and shook her pipe at him, "You'll get yourself trodden on if you stay there. Not all folks are as considerate as Rita in stepping over your idle form. So don't you come bewailing your woes to me if someone does walk on your paws!"

He flicked his tail at her in an unmistakeable gesture. She swore sometimes that he mixed with the wrong crowds along the streets of Harlem and it rubbed off on his fur and attitude. But he was too old to change now. As was she.

"Suit yourself. Your tea'll be ready in a few hours. Don't be late, or I'll put it out for the calico on the second floor…"

Another profane flick, which made her chortle as she made her way down the steps back to her deckchair.

She had only just settled herself again when more footsteps caused her to open her eyes, and catch sight of another resident with a fondness for Joshua hurrying down the steps.

"Off to work again, Riaz?" She called, a little more jauntily, knowing he would stop for a few moments chat before his shift. He did not disappoint her, and leaned down with a smile across his face.

"As ever, Mrs A. No rest, as they say. How you doing this evening?"

"Not so bad, not so bad. You haven't seen a sight of young Rita have you?"

He shook his dark waves of hair, "I have not, but then I've been asleep most of the day. Got me a double shift. I'll catch you later though."

With a wave and a grin, he was gone.

Mrs Adams smiled after him, and then shouted up to Joshua, "Lucky for you Riaz is a caring sort of a person huh, Joshua? Lucky for you, you got a nurse as another neighbour who wouldn't crunch your tail under his feet. What do you say to _that_?"

His tail flicked once more, and settled back onto the heat dusted step. The evening drew on.

………………………………...

"You look good, Zee." Lindsay offered first, and truthfully, "You've got some new clothes there, they look real smart on you. You like them?"

Zee sat down and took a sip of his drink, watching them over the rim of his cup, "Yeah. They're good. So, you two again, huh? You talked to me last night. You got more questions for me?"

"A few more." Lindsay answered. She knew she had to speak. Too much silence and the fears that were gathering like a murder of crows in her mind would overpower her, "You did good last night, Zee, remembering what you did. But we need you to remember a little more, okay? A bit more about what happened yesterday. Do you think you can do that?"

She was straining forwards in her seat, hoping the plea in her eyes would reach him.

There was more silence.

_Please remember, please…_

Lindsay felt her fingers gouging into the padding of the chair, widening a hole her fingernail had found. Zee set the cup down on the table. Coffee dribbled over the edge of it and crept round the base.

_More stains on the table_, Lindsay thought. _We should have brought some napkins…_

Angell spoke, "Whilst you're remembering, Zee, I'm just going to tell you before you ask: Stella's still in the hospital and she's being looked after. She's alive. Is that okay?"

The edge of the chair, Lindsay realised, was only just underneath her. Angell too was leaning forward precariously. The silence continued. Zee ran his finger around the edge of the cup, staring into it. Then he looked up, and his eyes met theirs. He looked from one to the other.

"Okay."

Both women exhaled, then Lindsay spoke, "_Good_. Okay, now, you think you can remember back to yesterday? What did you see outside? What happened _before_ you saved Stella? Try and remember and tell us what happened."

More coffee slopped over the edge of the cup as Zee swirled it. Then he set it down. His finger ran round the cup one more time.

"I remember. I'll tell you."

………………………………...

There was nothing else he could say to Mac. Flack had used all the arguments that he knew as soon as he opened his mouth would not work; the 'go home and get some rest' arguments; the 'you're not doing Stella or anyone any good by neglecting yourself' arguments; the 'I'll stay with her while you go home and sleep for a few hours' arguments. Mac had simply stared at him with the granite sherds that had become his eyes and refused with one word. Not even bothering to use any counter arguments; because he knew that Flack knew them as well as he did. And Flack knew that his mind was made up. End of.

As he sat in the other chair in the room, Flack decided that it was working with Stella for so long that had increased Mac's obstinacy. Once he had decided something, she was the only person able to persuade him otherwise. But she was still unconscious, and was the very reason Mac was refusing to make acquaintance with the interior of his apartment, until she could be persuaded to be otherwise. If she could be.

Sitting across from him, at Stella's other side with his fingers still brushing hers, he saw Mac's eyes were closed and his lips were slightly parted; dozing. Flack sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair, before looking down at Stella and wishing that he did not have to see her lying like this, so unlike herself.

"Come on, Stell." He murmured, "I said this to Danny, and I'm saying it to _you_ now. Come back to us, please. All you have to do is open your eyes…"

**Longest chapter so far! Please let me know what you think; if the different scenes worked or not, or if there was enough about the case and characters. All reviews very welcome and replied to. Thank you, Lily x**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 14: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! I hope you like this chapter too! Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - all very welcome at any time, and always replied to if logged. Thanks to ****_webDLfan, LME _and _Blue Shadowdancer_ for extra discussion! And to _sarramaks_ for reading.**

**Thank you to _Fat Kat _and _Jessica_ for reviews of chapter 13, and to _Jessica _and_ Mynerva24 _for reviews of some of my other stories.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 14

_10__th__ August_

… _It almost looked like rain this morning - there was a hint of mist along the street, just catching in the tops of the trees. Not for long though; the sun appeared with a flourish around ten o'clock and burned it away, so I'm sitting writing this on the top step outside the apartment trying not to get sunburnt. Mrs Adams is in her courtyard dozing as usual. Joshua's come to sit beside me, hoping for a little something. I'm afraid he's going to be waiting some time as I haven't a thing in my cupboards, and not a dime in my purse. Joe's off on some errand or other though, which he assures me will buy us at the very least a quart of milk. I hope so…_

………………………………_..._

_Open your eyes…_

Flack's eyes stayed on Stella's face, but there was no sign she heard him, and no change in her pale features; her eyes remained closed. His sigh shook with sadness as he squeezed her hand, "Please don't make us wait too long."

Looking at Mac, who was just beginning to stir from his doze, Flack saw him aged ruinously in the last two days, and felt the anger simmering beneath his skin boil over; one crime scene and he had lost sight of three people he cared about, because Mac had put his own life on hold for both Danny and Stella, for as long as it took. Whilst it was Stella's side he was at, Flack knew Mac's thoughts were also with Danny and his family. He knew Danny would have it no other way; he had the family Stella didn't.

And Flack was at the side of all of them. He had been to see Danny and his parents first, and it had devastated him to see their grief, almost as much as seeing his best friend snatched from them and so shattered in body. When he saw him, he could only drop into a chair and cover his face with his hands; pretending he hadn't seen, pretending it hadn't happened, pretending that Danny was going to throw the sheets off and laugh at him for falling for the joke. But he didn't. There was no laughter, no grin, no smartass return as he looked through his fingers at him. The figure in the bed was Danny. But only a part, a version of him. The rest of him, the real Danny was lost somewhere he couldn't find.

It had been one of the longest hours of his life, sitting there. Flack hated hospitals, and had tried every wile in his persuasive battery to get himself out after the explosion. Now it took only a whiff of antiseptic to spin his mind back to the days when all he had to look at for hours at a time was a green ceiling with a patch of paint peeling away in the corner. It had tormented him. Every day, the wafer-thin pieces of emulsion seemed to increase in size and curl further and further away from the wall; almost, but never quite, falling off. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Flack looked up now at the ceiling in Stella's room and saw a dusty thread of spider silk sagging from the cornice, swinging in an otherwise invisible draught. Back and forth, but not quite in rhythm, frustratingly syncopated, so he stood and swept it away with a flick of his hand.

Nearly quarter past midnight; still a few hours before he was due back at the precinct. The face of his watch slipped round his wrist, and underneath, his skin itched and smarted where sweat had trickled down and been trapped. The temperature in the room, indifferent to the hour, was tepid - even in his light, short-sleeved shirt, he was too warm. Mac, in a black shirt had to be even more uncomfortable than he was…

A black shirt. With a feeling of resigned despair, Flack realised Mac was still wearing the same shirt of two days ago; when he carried Stella out of the warehouse. The man who was always impeccably dressed was now wearing a blood-stained shirt and pants that carried chalky dust in smears. It hit Flack like a boulder in his chest; the image of Mac before him, and everything that had brought him to this state. But there was something at least he could do about that.

He crossed the room to put his hand on the other man's shoulder, speaking softly, "Mac?"

"I've already told you, Don…" Mac's voice was slurry with the dregs of sleep as his eyes blinked open.

Flack shook his head, "I've given up arguing, for now, but I've not given up being concerned about you. _You_ might be okay with sitting there in clothes that I know damn well you've not changed for two days, but _I'm_ not, and nor would Stella be; she'd be furious. Listen, Mac, I'll go get you a change of clothes. And something to eat, 'cause I'm willing to bet you've taken as much care of your appetite as you have of your appearance." He raised his eyebrows as he held out his hand.

Rubbing his hands over his face, Mac looked down with blank eyes at himself, then across to Stella's still form, "I hadn't noticed…"

Flack sighed, "I know. I know you hadn't. But I _have_, so I'm telling you. It won't take me long to head to the lab and back, okay?"

Part of him was hoping for an argument; for something to rise up in the other man and fight back. But nothing happened. Mac dug into his pocket and handed over a loop of keys, "In my locker."

Flack closed his hand round them, "Okay. See you shortly. Try and get some sleep."

There was no answer. He had already lost Mac's attention. After a final glance, he left, closing the door so he could hear the click of the latch. Too much silence. For a moment Flack stood in the corridor, thankful to be out of the room and the absence it held, then he walked away without looking back.

………………………………...

_Open your eyes…_

Central Park:

A man in a greasy baseball cap and football jersey waited on a bench by the disc of concrete that hid under nacreous ice in winter. At this time of year though, its reality was exposed; a grey, pimpled surface, puddled with orange from the lamps over head. The man sat beyond their circle in the shade of shrubs, on the bench furthest from the path. His arm extended along the back of the seat, and his fingers tapped the edge. Dead beats, like the patter of stones on wood. He waited, and made no excuses for the person he was waiting for.

Five minutes late.

An elderly man, walking a dog that resembled a badly-wound ball of string on a lead, approached. TJ gave no indication he had noticed him, although every detail of the man's appearance - from mismatched socks showing beneath pants a few inches too short, to the trilby askew on his head - had been noted in his mind. TJ looked at people, and looked so much at them, that he passed invisibly beyond their looks. The old man disappeared into the gloom of the path, reappearing at intervals beneath the lamps, not looking back.

Six minutes late.

Running footsteps caught his ear, pounding along from the opposite direction the old man had gone. TJ did not turn his head until they stopped in front of him, and he heard the sound of gasping breaths and stuttering apologies. He ignored them.

Seven minutes late.

Drawing his arm off the back of the bench, he pulled up his cuffs, "You know, when I make a time for an appointment, and I tell you half past midnight, I _mean_ half past midnight, kid. I don't mean thirty seven minutes past midnight, you got me? I don't have the kind of lifestyle that allows me to sit around on park benches waiting for people. You understand what I'm saying?" He held up a hand as the young man began tripping over reasons for delay, "Don't want to hear it. Ain't got time or inclination for excuses. You kept me waiting, I ain't happy. Meaning you gotta do something to make up for it."

The man in front of him, recommended by Rich, was still an unknown quantity, and TJ knew that he was investing perhaps too much trust in him. Especially considering what Rich had done: he had known the instant he met with him in the coffee shop, and been told the story of the hit on Rita and subsequent events, that he was lying. TJ was good, very good, at reading the lies in darting eyes, in perspiration on top lips and in fingers that shook and crushed packets of sugar. The evening edition of the New York Times had only confirmed what he knew. Which was why he was here now, meeting with the young man introduced to him as Troy, but who he knew was in fact called Christopher Mendes. He also knew Christopher's address; which college he had dropped out of; and where his sister and her seven month old daughter lived. But Christopher did not know what he knew, and TJ would keep the knowledge until he needed it.

Which might not be long away; Troy (he would allow him to remain for now) had already disappointed him in the undertaking of his first job; the cache of information hidden in the basement apartment. He had only gotten away with one box of letters, and had been seen. He had also kept him waiting.

TJ looked down at, and admired, his fingernails; kept, like his secrets, in perfect condition; it was his one conceit. He kept Troy for a minute or two longer shifting up and down in his hi-tops, and rubbing his hands down his board shorts.

"You got the letters okay, TJ? Couldn't get no more, the old woman…"

"I told you, no excuses, _Troy_. You didn't get all of them, and that was a disappointment. Means I got only half a job done, and that ain't good for me or you. So here's the deal; you got one more chance to make good, otherwise, I'm gonna have to let you go."

TJ lifted up his cap momentarily to swipe a stray piece of hair out of his eyes. Only then did he give Troy his eyes, and a smile that gave away nothing and everything.

"Anything, totally, just… just tell me what you need me to do. I'm good for it, really, like, _anything_… I'll do it." Troy's hands had dropped down to his side and swung there, helplessly. His eyes were holes burnt in a white face.

TJ added a red scorch across his face by letting a few more seconds pass before answering, "I need you to find our mutual acquaintance who thinks he's about to disappear without my knowledge." He pulled his copy of the Times out, "And as soon as Rich is returned to our happy family, I have a few more things we need to take care of which I can't afford for him to screw up."

"You got it."

Troy skidded off into the darkness beyond the lamps, arms swinging, his sneakers slapping along the path, and his too-big shorts swooshing.

TJ watched him unblinking, "I hope so, Christopher."

………………………………...

_Open your eyes…_

Night passed and another white and gold dawn ribboned across the canopy of sky, rising in a quivering heat haze across the city. Some stood at windows and watched, eyes bright against glass that played warm reflections across their skin; some strode along the streets, eyes down at their feet as they hit the already burning sidewalks, ignorant of the scenes around and above them; and some were insensible, asleep, dreaming, unaware.

Inside a room - every detail of which the man and woman inside had no recollection or care of - days, hours and time had vanished. Circadian rhythms had broken into single, fractured notes. Daylight and twilight had mingled into a pale blue not-quite light. It lulled the one into sleep, and made no difference to the dreaming oblivion of the other.

………………………………...

_Open your eyes…_

"Don? You awake?"

Angell poked gently the tall detective, who was folded into a chair that was too small for him, his forearms pillowing his head on his desk.

He grunted, and a bleary eye opened, "Huh? What?"

Not averse to stating the obvious, she dropped into the chair she had dragged over, telling Flack, "You were asleep."

He glowered at her, and lifted his head with a groan, "Till _you_ came busting in here. What'd I do?"

She studied him frankly, "Taking a wild guess, I'd say it's what you _didn't_ do in the way of going home and sleeping. Would I be right?"

"I got a few hours. You?"

Angell doubted it was the truth, but let it pass for the moment, "The same. More than Lindsay though. We took longer than expected interviewing our potential witness, and she was rushing off back to Danny." She exhaled a gust of air, "I'm telling you, Don, that has to be one of the toughest interviews I've ever had."

She slid her hand across towards the cardboard cup of coffee balanced on a heap of files, and then stopped.

Flack eyed her, before picking it up and holding it out, "You want some? Only gotta ask, Jess."

"Actually, no. I watched Zee drink enough to drown Manhattan. Thanks anyhow."

"Suit yourself." He grinned and downed the contents with a satisfied smack of his lips. Watching him, Angell was seized with the thought that even the smallest flash of blue smile in his eyes could improve the shining hours.

"So what happened? He tell you anything you _didn't_ know?"

She riffled through a sheaf of papers with her fingertips, "A little, when we managed to persuade him, _finally,_ that he hadn't killed Stella by hiding her. We also avoided any of the more complex issues around that action…"

Flack snorted, "Still can't decide whether I want to shake the guy's hand, or shake him by the scruff of his neck for delaying you three." He put down the scrunched cardboard cup on the desk with feeling.

Angell continued, "He gave us what _might_ be useful information. Said he couldn't remember everything, but he would keep trying, and he gave us a description of the two guys who were in the car. I'm heading back later today with an artist, see if we can get something a little more solid. I'm hopeful, but..." She paused, Flack was leaning back in his chair, with narrowed eyes, "Any thoughts?"

"Go with it, for now. It's as solid as we're going to get until Stella regains consciousness." His forehead creased, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, "If she remembers. If she wakes up…"

Her hand closed over his and her voice was soft, "She will, Don. And so will Danny."

"They have to, Jess. If not…"

Angell looked at him as his head dropped, wishing there was something she could do to take or at least share the fears and responsibilities that were starting to buckle him.

She kept talking, her voice even and calm, "You saw Mac earlier?"

"Yeah."

"You're worried about him."

The words shot out of him, as his fingers wrapped into a fist, "Damn right. Mac, Lindsay, Danny, Stella, all of 'em… this has devastated Mac's team. And to make matters worse, I'm hearing Sinclair's getting edgy about Mac's non-appearance in the lab, and the cases that are building up."

"Surely he understands the circumstances?" She pulled her eyebrows up.

Flack gave another explosion of contempt, "Sinclair? Unlikely. He and Mac, let's say their views ain't always harmonious, especially after the Dobson case. Slightest chance to condemn him, and Sinclair's grabbing for it. But I can't condemn Mac for staying with Stella; she's done the same, and more, for him."

Angell looked steadily at Flack, "There aren't many people who'd do that for each other."

………………………………...

_Open your eyes…_

Morning passed out of reach before the man in the room struggled up from dreams of smoke, darkness and horror that oozed blood over his hands.

Mac woke as his vision phased from the room to the dusky colour of behind eyelids, and back. His head was filled with sand, dropping forwards, then jerking back up. Grains in his eyes and in his mouth. Flack had returned and left hours before, leaving behind breakfast, coffee and a change of clothes, even a tie - which had caused the dull stupor inside his head to clear for a moment, and the corners of his lips to lift. Food and fresh clothes had revived him a little. He hadn't worn the tie though; it lay across the back of the empty chair, mottled blue and green, merging and shifting with the colour of the walls as his eyes distorted.

Silence. Stillness. The room was too empty, he could not speak for fear that what he said would be lost in a void, and they would not reach the person he meant them for. He was afraid to speak to Stella. He knew Flack had; he had heard him through the fuzz of sleep earlier. But she had not heard him.

Touch, maybe. Maybe it made a difference. From the moment the medical staff had given way to him, he had barely lost contact with Stella's skin; from his hand clasped around hers when he was awake, to the pin-tuck lines and valleys of his fingerprints that stayed on her arm when he was smothered by sleep. Even when he was drawn politely aside for the clinical touch of others, he retained the memory in his fingertips.

Touch, certainly. It always made a difference to him. The presence of Stella behind him; hairs stirred on the back of his neck as she laid a palm on his shoulder knowing instinctively when it was needed; her arms when they wrapped round him, and her hand and kiss on his cheek. Never hesitant, often impulsive, never unwelcome.

He let his thumb now brush the back of her hand. His touch was different; often hesitant, rarely impulsive but always welcomed. And perhaps not often enough, but that was who he was, and Stella would never ask any more of him. Words too; she gave more than he did and filled the silences that he left for her, offered the words he needed when he struggled with what to say.

The silence and space between them were the all words and the touches they needed sometimes; a look, a thought, passed through walls even.

But not now. Too much silence, too many words he had assumed and not spoken. Maybe she would hear him now. He let the backs of his fingers rest against her cheek, and began with her name.

The day passed unnoticed behind the walls. Until words drifted away, exhaustion pulled his eyelids down, and evening velvet swung into place over the invisible city as he slept.

Time crept forwards to night's final hours. Mac woke, and looked. And looked into Stella's opening eyes.

**Please review and let me know what you think! I'm moving in a few days : ( so reviews will really help me with that, and writing the next chapter. Thanks, Lily x**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 15: Wow, thank you SO much for all previous reviews, and good wishes! I REALLY hope you enjoy this chapter! Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, and always replied to if logged. Thanks to ****_Blue Shadowdancer _for discussion, and for reading. Thank you to _Fat Kat _and_ Lost in New York _for your reviews, I'm sorry I couldn't send proper replies. **

Lost Letters: Chapter 15

_9th August_

… _Well, we finished off the last tin of soup and the last tin of anything today, so that's it, no more food. Until we can get some money, from somewhere. I'm only able to send this to you because I bought a bulk lot of stamps the other week. It's just a pity you can't eat stamps, don't think I haven't thought about it! But Joe reckons his new acquaintances might be able to provide some work for him, maybe me at some point. He was vague about what exactly that work might entail, errands and tracking things down was all he'd say. We'll see anyhow…_

………………………………_..._

She opened her eyes. And saw his eyes. Heard his voice. Her name, her name. She had almost forgotten it.

"Stella…"

How long? Where? _What happened_? How? Something had happened. Something in a haze of noise and gunshot and heat and pain that still gnawed at the edge of her consciousness.

_How long_? Too long? She could not remember. Time was nothing but an interruption of memory starting from Mac's face, smiling at her; her smiling at him, walking away and then it was all gone. Stopped. Until now, ending and starting again with his face.

His face here now. Smiling, but different. His smile didn't quite fit. Didn't quite reach his eyes. His eyes. She could see them, so she knew hers were open. She could see him.

"Stella…"

His fingertips on her cheek, soft across her skin, delicate touch…

She remembered heat, the scratch of its talons reaching for her, almost seizing her... Her eyes widened, and saw him still. _No_. She got out, she remembered, she was safe. Her skin was cool. Blue, green and white in front of her eyes now, the sea-grey of his.

But there _had_ been the heat of fire. Black, red, orange. Trapped. Fire, smoke. _No, no…_

She gasped, and realised something was over her mouth and nose. Something cold, rigid, pressing onto her skin…

"Stella, it's okay, it's okay…"

His voice. _Mac_. His eyes.

"It's okay. Just breathe in. Slowly."

She drew a breath. And another. Slower… But the memory of smoke again came crawling and wraithing back. Hoary ghosts in her eyes and nose and mouth…

"It's okay…"

Mac's eyes were still there. She breathed in. Slowly. Air. White air, the faint taste and smell of plastic.

"It's okay…"

_Where? _There was no smoke now, no heat, no clutching, greedy viper-tongues of flame. Just clean, white, medical pale around her. Smells of air and linen and oxygen. Hospital. Safe.

"You're okay, Stella."

She could still not uncover her voice, but she heard his, Mac's, beside her, close to her ear, felt the sensation of his voice and a fingertip tingle on her hand from his. His eyes were above hers. She heard him, and let all of him speak. Her words would wait until she could find them. But it was all right, because he had found the ones to use whilst hers were lost for the moment. Caught somewhere behind her eyes and the forgotten and whatever had happened…

Mac's face… and then another face. A flash in front of her. Her voice, the last time she had heard it, shouting as a hand came down on the back of her head, forcing her down, a crack at the front of her head, her fist connecting with someone solid and then an explosion of sound and pain inside her. Something inside her. And blood. Red, sticking, on her hands, everywhere, falling out of her, _everywhere_. Darkness, and crazed swirls of scarlet, ruby bright agony around and through her…

"It's okay, it's okay…"

There had been something over her, suffocating, heavy, and another face.

But _not_ now. A memory. She breathed in. Slowly. Mac's eyes were still there. His hand on hers.

"Just hold on, you're okay…"

His voice. His voice…

Then other voices, other eyes, other faces, other hands. Stella let them pass over her. Let their hands move her, and move over her; and manipulate all the things that were not a part of her body and barely part of her awareness: the taste of plastic taken away from her mouth, slivers of metal inserted in her arm, electric noises jangling around her. And there was cold in her side. Burning, freezing cold where there had been an excruciating inferno. Memory flashed again, in oil paint and gouache colours, flung in front of her eyes… but fading to pastel and watercolour washes now. Voices fading in and out, fogging over her. They dulled and clouded. Too many. She closed her eyes, waited for one voice …

"Stella…"

Heard him and saw him again. White room, pearl-grey eyes. She breathed, her own breath now. And held Mac's words. Held the touch of his fingers again on her forehead, soothing across her hair.

His eyes. Too bright. His smile, but so frail, it might fall to pieces.

"I'm still here, Stella."

_So am I…_

She made her fingers move, found his, and strengthened his smile. Sent fleeing some of the shade from his face. Mac smiled, and the smile on his lips touched her cheek. His eyes again, the smile reaching them. And it stayed as he held on to her. _Safe_. But she felt she was losing herself again, the room and his eyes were disappearing… She fought the falling weight of her eyelashes, until she heard Mac's voice again gently across her eyelids.

"It's okay, I'm staying right here with you. Let yourself get some rest now, Stella. I promise I'll still be here when you wake up again, okay? I promise. Just close your eyes…"

Stella closed her eyes and let the room darken away.

………………………………...

Mac watched as she slept. Only sleeping this time. Not the terrible state between life and death that she had been adrift in. He sighed back in his seat, feeling for the first time the thinly upholstered, rough cotton covered chair he had been spending his hours for the last four days in. For the first time in all that time, he felt the tentative threads of life return and start to weave themselves back around his heart.

There was a long road to go, but at last he could see Stella was returning to the world, and for the first time in four days he had seen life restored to her eyes. If only there could be the same for Danny. But there was no more news there, and it seemed an even longer road for him to travel. All Mac could do was be at the side of both Stella and Danny, and walk it with them as far as he could. And walk it with the rest of his team. He was not unaware that everyone was suffering the consequences of the crime scene four days ago. Four days that had passed in a series of flashes and still images, lost hours and the fear and uncertainty that still lurked.

Others were still waiting in uncertainty; however there was something he could do about that. Standing, grimacing with the groan of inflexible joints, Mac stretched out his limbs and stood up. As quietly as possible, he opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, one hand remaining on the handle, and his eyes not leaving Stella. He eased his cell out of his pocket and pressed in the first numbers he needed to.

………………………………...

"Hey Lindsay, how're you doing?" Hawkes looked at her anxiously, catching her at the elevator as she exited, "You get much sleep?" It seemed to be the question most asked of his colleagues at the moment.

She looked to be living in a half-life; thinning in front of him, with coal dust eyes and ashy skin, looking to have barely enough energy to lift her shoulders.

"A little."

"You get anywhere near your apartment?"

"Damn." Dropping her bag, she pushed a lank droop of hair out of her face, bending to pick it up off the floor, "Yeah, I got through the front door, checked my mail, usual crap of course…"

"Not quite what I meant, Linds. Have you eaten anything?"

Hawkes doubted it, even without an answer from her, which was why he pushed the brown paper bag full of muffins and bagels and a cardboard cup of coffee into her hands, shutting off her weak protests, "Here. No, don't worry. I picked them up extra with my own order. Wouldn't want to see them go to waste, or for Flack to get a hold of them."

It won him a small smile, "Thanks, Sheldon, I appreciate it."

The lab, in the early hours of the morning, was yellow in the sun through the glass, and thrumming with people. Small smiles and understanding nods appeared as other staff passed them. Lindsay kept her eyes low, and Hawkes let his hand hover behind her back.

They walked on, Hawkes guiding her towards the trace lab, "Adam's waiting for us, he got some results off of the key Sid found."

"The key in the corpse?" A smile appeared on her lips.

Hawkes grinned, "The very same. Oh, and to warn you; if Sid starts to try and tell you about anything else he's taken out of corpses, just say no, Lindsay. Trust me on that."

Lindsay quirked her eyebrows, "Really? You want me to _not_ listen to Sid tell one of his anecdotes?"

"You do not want to listen to _this _one…"

Adam looked up as they pushed the door open, "Hey guys. Got something you'll want to see…" He paused and a flush crept over his cheeks, "Lindsay, sorry… how… how's Danny?"

"It's okay, Adam. He's just the same, thanks for asking."

He shuffled his feet, looking between both of them, "And Stella? You heard… heard any more how she is?"

Hawkes shook his head, "Same as before, she's still unconscious as far as we know."

There was a brief, considering silence, until Hawkes gestured over to Adam's work station, "So, what did you find out from the key? If there was anything you managed to get off of that little piece of metal, Adam, I for one will be the first to congratulate you with a beer my friend."

Adam grinned with a duck of his head, "Hey, I might have to hold you to that then, Hawkes, 'cause I _did_ find you a little something…"

Hawkes glanced over at Lindsay, whose face was the most alight he had seen in days. Her interest was piqued, "How little, Adam?"

Spinning around, across to the table, Adam picked up the small object and passed it over to her first, a smile of anticipation on his face, "You'll need to take a look under the microscope."

He pulled one over and Hawkes slid the key underneath. The rectangular torque with a small hole punched into the centre top trembled into focus. Etched insubstantially across the bottom was visible a broken series of numbers and letters.

"_How_ did you get them?" He was impressed; the serial number was not complete, but that Adam had managed to find anything at all from the corroded metal was an achievement that he would impress on the younger man, "When Sid dug it out, there didn't seem to be anything visible at all, we decided that the stomach acid had dissolved any trace of anything to identify it. I call that a result, man."

He moved aside for Lindsay, and she bent over, sweeping her hair back for a closer look.

Adam ruffled his hand through his thatch of curls, "Wasn't easy, and I didn't get as good a result as I wanted… couldn't get all the sequence, but I got some…"

"No, no, you did great, Adam. Really great, this is far better than we could have hoped for." Lindsay raised her head, and Adam grinned.

"Thanks. Thought you'd like it. I did a little dissolving of my own - burned away the top layer, and found the remains underneath of the grooves left when the sequence was etched in."

"Any chance you can…?"

"Track them? Already started on it." Adam hopped over to his work station, and Hawkes smiled to himself at the sight of confidence in him, doing what he did best. A piece of paper was thrust into his hand, "I did a little research, made easier by the fact that we have the first two digits in the sequence. Post office boxes have the same length codes, and same organisation of letters and numbers, so I generated a list of all possible combinations." Another wad of papers were thrust into Hawkes' hand, "Unfortunately, there are a _lot_ of possible combinations. Sorry, I couldn't do any better…"

His face was apologetic, and Hawkes rushed to reassure him, "No, no. Again, Adam, far better than we could have hoped for. You've done a great job here. We're several steps ahead of where we were a few days ago."

Lindsay managed a smile, "Thanks Adam. It's a good start."

He scuffled his feet, "Anything else, I can, you know, do…?"

"Hold on a moment." Hawkes felt his phone vibrating and stepped aside as Lindsay bent again for another look at the key and Adam pressed close to her side, pointing out further nuances in the object.

"Hawkes… That you, Mac?"

The movement from the other two ceased and the room stilled to a hush. Hawkes listened to the brief speech from the head of the lab regarding Stella, and then turned to his colleagues, feeling his face opening and stretching into a genuine smile for the first time in four days. He told them Mac's news and watched much-missed light appear in Lindsay's face, glow in her eyes, and beam in Adam's face.

………………………………...

Early afternoon. The quietest time of day for flowers, so Dorothy Rainier had decided many years ago. Her corner flower stall on 21st and Amsterdam Avenue was in its usual afternoon lull; the morning rush of men and women, stopping in for hastily swept up purchases was passed, as was the lunchtime buzz, when bundles of flowers disappeared, and re-appeared as she plunged more stems into the buckets of water outside, creating a heady display of blossoms, and rapidly vanishing slops of liquid on the sidewalk. Late August was lilies; waterfalls of waxy petals and pollen that stained and speckled skin, and nearly choked the air with thick, sweet scents; their smell and presence on almost every corner of the centre of Manhattan.

Dorothy sat behind the counter and let her gaze wander to the street outside; sparser than a few hours previously, but still bristling with pedestrians, some brushing past the displays, traces of orange dust attaching to them. Unnoticed. Fingers brushed the curling-tongued petals and left them behind, but took an unseen trace of pollen from their lick.

It was hot, still too hot. Feeling as if she was wilting away under the sun's ravenous glare, she looked at her face glistening with perspiration in the mirrored surface of the shapely vases on display. Glass curlicews holding bowed rose stems, dripping petals onto the floor, and slender urns cascading candy pink and white Asiatic lilies. She hated this time of year; it turned the water in the vases and buckets rank with slime and putrefying leaves, filling the air space in her stall with a suffocating, cloying stench, competing with the overpowering scents of the flowers.

She pulled a swig of water from the bottle at her side, and grimaced; it had turned brackish in the heat, again.

"Damn climate change." She muttered and spun the cap back on. Then looked up to see a customer pushing his way through the mass of greenery: a tall, rail-thin, older looking man, who had a mouth that turned slightly at the corners, and thick rimmed glasses hanging around his neck, eyes that looked like fingers had drawn the corners down, but with a spark in them, unmistakeable even in the bottle green light.

She smiled and slid off her stool, hopping round the counter to win a purchase from him, "You've a special someone in mind, sir?"

The man replaced his unusual glasses, clicking them apart and then back together, with a smile, "I do indeed. Several someones in fact."

Dorothy raised her eyebrows, considering that he really didn't appear the type…

"Two dear friends and my wife."

Of course. With the practiced ease and smiles of a born saleswoman, she drew him further in to the dusky interior and introduced him to all the flowers he might need, for any circumstance. She probed him with questions; drawing answers and business from him, with skills a medical examiner would have been proud of.

………………………………...

Rose quartz banners undulated across the sky as the sun waned and the moon waxed, and the humid embrace of the day relaxed its grip. The streets filled and emptied as the hours drew on to dusk. Inside in the unchanging air-conditioned daylight, Lindsay sat silently at Danny's side, turned slightly away from his face. Her gaze instead on the spray of sunset hued blooms that stood in a vase next to the bed. A gift from Sid a few hours before; for her and for Danny, which she had accepted for both of them with a smile that understood all his meaning. She reached out a finger and stroked the pink and yellow smudged petals of the roses; hoping that the peace of their name could be found soon for all of them.

………………………………...

Another shift over, another night beginning as day. Riaz felt his inner body clock give a groan and curl up in defeat. But that was how his life worked and he was used to it now. He would grab some takeout, go home, exchange a few words with Mrs Adams and a few pieces of chicken with Joshua and start his day as the moon rose.

He strolled along the corridor, and the same room that had snagged his attention a few days previously did so again, the door being open a chink. He peered in as he passed and saw a change; still the same occupants, but the dark-haired man had lost some of the creases and strain that he had seen previously. The woman he was with too; he saw the faintest tint of colour in her face, and rather than the unnaturally motionless arrangement she had been in when he last saw them, she lay now in a position of natural sleep with her hair curling over the pillow. A spray of vibrant gold dahlias gave a glow to the room that had been lacking before. The final detail that struck him was the placing of their hands; now it was her hand that was over her companion's. He smiled, and called out again; a 'good night' this time.

The man looked up, startled at first, but then echoed his words, and Riaz continued with a smile, down the corridor and out through the main doors, just missing the entrance of a man with a bruise along his jaw line, and a copy of the New York Times stuffed into his back pocket.

**Well, almost moved. My life is now packed into the back of a small Ford Fiesta :D I leave tomorrow, so sorry if I'm late with review replies. I'm sorry too for being a bit presumptive there… please do review! I really hope this chapter was okay, and the different scenes worked. Thanks, Lily x**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 16: Many thanks to everyone for all previous reviews, and good wishes! I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. Sorry some of my replies were a little delayed, and that this is later than planned.**

**Thank you very much to **_**Blue Shadowdancer**_** for reading, and to **_**chrysalis escapist**_** for extra thoughts on previous chapters.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 16

_8th August_

… _I'm almost out of food, I checked the cupboards this morning and we've got a can of soup, a scrape of peanut butter in a jar and a slice of bread. That's it. Yesterday at least we ate okay, Mrs Adams invited the both of us, Joe and me, down for dinner and fed us handsomely on salad and cold chicken. She sure has a lot of stuff in her apartment - every inch is just crammed with items of furniture and knick-knacks - crammed even fuller than my stomach was, I ate as much as I could, which pleased her as she kept on filling up my plate. And the closets! I couldn't see what was inside of them, but they line every wall and the doors were having trouble staying closed. I'm just desperate to know what she keeps hidden away…_

………………………………_..._

The light pressure of Stella's hand on his was beginning to restore him, at least a measure of him. The shot that had been fired at the crime scene, the bullet that had hit Stella - a single shot, a single bullet - had fired through his team and all the individuals who made the team. It was the pieces and the whole of his team that made and completed who Mac Taylor was. One bullet had nearly destroyed that. Take away his partner and the wholeness of his team from him, and what was left was all that he was now: incomplete and still unable to find all of himself. It had not escaped him how differently the others had looked at him since the events of nearly five days ago, not quite recognising him. He knew how they felt.

Five days since the crime scene. Hours and minutes easily calculated, but impossible to retrieve, for any of them. That time had been stolen from two people who never squandered a moment of it, and who never hesitated to give it generously to others, was the worst consequence. Danny and Stella would never have back the last five days and everything they could have done in that time, nor would they live again the days it would take to recover. Because they _would_ recover. Even though Danny's time was still on hold. A stopped clock, waiting whilst all those around him ticked on.

It was a question of time. There was nothing else Mac could do, except give his to keep time with them.

He looked at Stella and cupped his other hand over hers, enclosing it. He looked and saw the visible marks that the last five days had left; the burn on her arm, the bruise yellowing on her forehead, crossed with a narrow scar that, even disguised under the thin strip of white tape, was dark against her too-pale face. A face that was thinned and taut with pain even as she slept. There was also the wound that would scar hidden under the sheets from the shot that had almost killed her, and had almost killed Danny in the ricochet of actions, reactions and consequences.

And, Mac knew, the invisible and often indelible scars were always a consequence too. For all of them. For a moment, he lifted his hand away and it hovered over Stella's, not quite touching, but then he let his palm and fingers press onto hers, knowing any marks he left would fade rapidly from her skin, but maybe not from her memory.

His eyes stayed on her, and he heard only the sounds that were in the room.

………………………………_..._

Rich looked around him, scanning the faces that passed him in the reception area of the hospital. Not many, not at this time of night when it was past visiting time, and the daytime babble had died away; neither were there any faces that he knew. He knew hospitals though. Ever since adolescence when his father had married again and his step-mother Irene had come crashing through the front porch and into his life; bringing her fists and her razor-blade tongue to smash and slice her way through what had been his easygoing and comfortable life with a single parent young enough to be an older brother.

Weekdays had been long hours of high school, except when he missed the bus or his alarm call; when that happened his father would laugh, clap him on the back and challenge him to a game of hoops. Weekend hours were always too short. Then he played games down at the park on the scratched out baseball diamond with the other kids on the street, and hit home runs whilst his father flirted unselfconsciously with the mothers that congregated around the edges of the chalk lines, enjoying their own rough diamond.

Irene was not one of them. His father had met her out shopping in the seven eleven on the corner, when a dispute over who was entitled to the last can of peaches led in weeks to a proposal. Irene got what she wanted on both counts.

And with that, Rich saw his smoothly oiled world graunching and juddering to a halt. His father and Irene married and his mechanisms seized. She was the grit in the cogs, and worse. In only weeks, at her behest, his father had taken a job out of state, necessitating stays in motels overnights; one night, two nights, sometimes three. But, he decided, because Irene was now there to look after his only son, it was okay. It was not okay for Rich, and it was not okay for Irene (who had seen only the extra money, not the extra responsibility), and she let Rich know with her fists and her words. It was _his_ fault.

His father, never acknowledging what was happening, gradually began to disappear from Rich's life and their hours at the park dwindled to minutes squashed between Irene's demands. There were no more home runs, no more cheers from the sidelines, and the mothers separated into low-murmuring groups with only themselves to talk to.

The previously unmeasured time to talk and argue and praise became clock-watched moments, with his father agitated and hurried, snapping out words, and gone again. Rich missed his father's sentences, and began to see him trapped in a life-sentence not of his own choosing. It was _her_ fault.

His father spent more and more time away working, and not working, and the home that he and his son had shared fell silent in the gaps between Irene's screams and tantrums. Rich lay awake the nights his father was due home, until sleep dragged him under to peaceless dreams, waking again when the lithographed figure of his father appeared in the bedroom doorway with an apologetic goodnight in the shrunken hours of the morning. Unreal, whilst Irene's rock and metal anger became reality, every day. His father's fault.

Anger that swung into him and cracked bones, bruised skin and haemorrhaged blood vessels. It wasn't long before she stopped taking him to the Emergency Room and became more careful where she hit him - there were too many questions, and not enough explanations left on the theme of soccer and baseball injuries. It was no good telling the truth, Rich had decided. There was no point, not when she took the words and everyone else's eyes away from him. Like a tank, she trammelled over the questions, over anyone's doubt and judgements. And, he decided, he was partly to blame for not being smart enough to find a way out and for not being strong enough to stand up to her because he never hit back, never spoke up. _That_ was his fault.

Not until one Tuesday afternoon in the middle of May, during his senior year at high school. Late home, Irene had sent him straight out to the store, and he had returned with the wrong kind of apples.

The next thing he realised, there were apples all over the kitchen floor, all over the walls and counters, bursting, popping and exploding pulp, pips and juice everywhere. Well-aimed bruised and bruising missiles that turned flesh green and yellow. They were sour smelling, slippery and treacherous under his feet, as he stumbled and dodged, then fell. Fireworks in front of his eyes and his eyelashes clumped with something sticky, and continuing like a saw through his brain the voice that would not stop. On and on. Not stopping. He staggered to his feet. Irene was still screeching at him. He flailed for something, grabbed something. She still didn't stop.

Stupid, _stupid, _damn stupid kid, stupid, stupid… Can't even get the damn grocery order right, can you? Stupid, _lazy_, worthless, _stupid_…

And then she had stopped. The sound stopped. Replaced by the sound of the knife in his hand clattering to the floor, and suddenly something else was mingling into a lurid, viscous mess on the floor, and he was slithering and skidding and running and running, and never stopping.

He had never stopped running and no one had ever caught him, but he had never quite lost who he was and what he had done. And from that moment he always hit back. Even when he became everyone but himself, what he had done still clung to every cell of his body, fretting away at the real person he had been until there was only a clutch of memories left, of before.

Only the present mattered now, and his future. Everything else was time that had passed and gone for ever, except for the trace of remembrance. Rich walked on slowly through the reception area hearing his sneakers on the floor and the brush of his arms against his shirt and the stolen white coat as he moved unhindered by anyone. The newspaper in his back pocket rustled with each step, and he felt the reassuring presence of his weapon tucked behind it. He knew who he was looking for. He knew he had to find them. He knew he did not have much time to do what he had to.

………………………………...

Mac's eyes were drawn again to the sheets on the bed, and their colour. White, always white to cover the damage. He remembered Danny and the white bandages around him, holding his broken edges together, but swaddling and imprisoning him. White hid red, but revealed it starkly. Danny's blood spattered across the white concrete canvas of the scene. A painted figure on a painted ground. And Stella when they had found her; blood in the white moonlight, painted on his hands. Leaving its mark.

A sigh and movement broke Mac out of his reflections.

"Stella?"

She was awake. As she turned her head towards him, there was recognition brighter in her eyes, and he smiled as the pressure on his hand from hers increased. For a moment, there was nothing else that intruded on his awareness. The world passed by outside.

………………………………...

Rich walked on, keeping to the middle of the corridor, away from the walls. People noticed you against the walls. Walking purposefully and confidently in the middle space, one foot placed neatly in front of the other rendered you almost invisible. That was how it worked for him, and certainly no one looked at him as he passed. He kept walking along parallel lines of cream and blue; past the posters that hung in places by only three corners, curled over in the corners; past doors that opened and ejected blue-gowned clones from operating theatres. Left, right, keep walking, eyes straight ahead, just a glance to the side and another. Keep walking.

………………………………...

Lindsay looked up at the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor and her fingers arrested on the rose petals that she had been stroking almost unconsciously. Their scent filled the room, fresh and sweet, hiding the medical smell. Her eyes jumped across to Danny, but no movement enlivened him. He had noticed nothing; his eyelashes stayed drawn across his powder-white cheeks.

She checked her watch; it was still too early for his parents to be returning. Flack maybe? He had promised to call in again as soon as he could, and relieve her for at least a couple of hours, which this time she knew she would have to concede to; exhaustion was beginning to overpower her. It was unlikely to be a nurse as one had only recently been in to check on Danny. The footsteps slowed, and stopped just outside the door. Lindsay waited for whoever it was to enter. If it wasn't a nurse, then it was probably Flack…

………………………………...

Flack was in the crime lab. Walking along the almost-deserted corridors, glancing from side to side into empty rooms that were navy blue in the spartan night lighting, speckled with firefly flashes from the equipment. The rooms still emitted invisible heat, radiating from the glass and enfolding him. He loosened his tie as he walked, and shrugged his shoulders to try and move some air around his body.

All the smells of the lab that winkled into his nose reminded him of long past high school days when he had slumped on his stool in the school's chemistry labs, staring out of the window at everything beyond that was far more interesting. It often surprised that his job now involved so much time with science and scientists. Especially after his science teacher, a man who bore a faint physical resemblance to Mac, had delighted in marking his papers with an 'F' in a thick, red pencil. Handing them to him with a hand that lacked a tip on its forefinger, and always smelled of iodine and ethanol. Years ago now.

He was here to track down Hawkes, as he was hoping to update him on everything he and Angell had uncovered on their side of the cases, before he went to offer some respite to Lindsay. His hope was that Hawkes would have something to update him with as well.

There was some progress, if you squinted hard and allowed a powerful magnification of optimism. Flack sighed, and wondered how he could describe no more witness statements and no further information, _yet_, as progress. Although there were still a few leads that he and Jess had to follow, and slowly, agonisingly slowly, with Lindsay's help she was making progress with Zee.

It was indisputable too that, now Stella had returned to consciousness, they had a further chance to identify their suspect. The ever-practical detective, innate in him, hoped for that, even as the friend rejoiced simply at the hope for her full recovery.

The problem, however, that Detective Don Flack saw, was that Stella was still seriously ill, and unlikely to remember much of what had happened. The time she had been missing was lost time, with just a few minutes of knowledge retrieved so far from Zee. There were minutes, hours, that, unless they caught their suspect and thief of more than time, would remain unknown for ever. Also, he suspected, it was going to be a little time yet before she could be interviewed. And Danny… the time when he would be recovered was still out of sight.

Flack's thoughts continued bleakly as he walked past Lindsay and Danny's shared office, dimly lit, and saw Danny's jacket flung over the back of his chair. He walked on. No sign of Hawkes. Stella's office passed on his left and he glanced in at the complex rebus of pens, papers and pencils visible on her desk. He walked on and his thoughts walked alongside him.

"Hey, Don. How's it going?"

Coming towards him was Hawkes. As they stopped outside the door to Mac's office, Flack grunted, and decided to tell him the truth. Hawkes, however, gave him some solace with the progress he and Adam had made on the key to the post office box. Before departing, Flack made a brief call to Angell, and enjoyed the few moments of conversation, even as his eyes looked through the walls of Mac's office and saw two cups that had been left on the desk. He walked on and out of the building.

………………………………...

The door opened slowly, the handle turning down with an oiled squeak.

Lindsay called out, "Flack? That you?"

But it was Adam's face that appeared round the door.

"Hey, Lindsay. Hope… hope I'm not disturbing you?"

She smiled, "No you're not. Come on in."

"Thanks."

He curved his body round the door, and stood awkwardly on the other side of the bed, "Hey, Danny."

Lindsay gave him a lopsided look.

Adam shrugged, an embarrassed pink across his cheeks, "Didn't seem right to ignore him…"

She smiled sadly, "No, it's okay, you're right."

He cleared his throat, and held out his hand to her, "I, uh, got something for him. Didn't know what to get, then I figured he might appreciate this."

On his hand was a white leather sphere.

Lindsay took the baseball and didn't care that Adam could see the tears that slid down her cheeks. The sounds of the hospital and everyone inside it, and outside the room, passed them by.

………………………………...

Miles and miles and miles of corridors. Rich walked along them at a constant pace, looking for who he wanted. No one stopped him, no one challenged him. His chameleon face and figure melted him into the faces and figures that passed him by. No one questioned one white coat in a hospital full of them. No one saw beyond the colour. He walked on.

………………………………...

Mac gave Stella time. They had time now. As soon as she opened her eyes the day before, her time had started up again; cautiously, tentatively, but stronger with each second. A faint smile appeared on her lips as she held onto his hand.

He waited to hear her voice. Her voice. The dread that he would never hear it again had still not disappeared, and he was suddenly stuck for words himself, the right words.

But he tried, even as he heard them hoarse and wrong in his throat, "How are you feeling?"

As soon as he spoke, he regretted the words, he should have thought more, should have said something else…

Stella closed her eyes and her face twisted in pain as she took in a deep breath. Mac heard the wheeze in her chest, and it caught at him.

"Stella…" He caught her hand more tightly, "It's okay, you don't have to try and say anything just yet…"

She shook her head and finally after she took a few sips of water with his help, he heard her voice for the first time in five days. A whispered echo of its usual clarion sound, but still her voice.

"Mac…" She drew in another breath, looked straight into his eyes, "How… how long?"

He told her. The world outside slowed and stopped.

………………………………...

Through a door ahead, Rich heard voices: two voices, a male and a female; and heard names that he recognised. He stopped, and his hand crept round to his back pocket. He looked around covertly and stepped towards the door. The corridor was silent. Timing was everything.

They had not heard him inside the room. The conversation continued. Rich flexed his fingers and took his final step forwards. He reached for the door handle. And felt a hand fall onto his shoulder.

**I hope that was okay, a bit less action this chapter. Please let me know what you think, any thoughts always welcome. Thanks, Lily x**


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 17: Thanks SO much to everyone for all previous reviews! I hope you enjoy this chapter too. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. Thank you to **_**Fat Kat **_**and **_**Juliette**_** for your reviews. I'm sorry some of my replies were delayed - internet access is a bit of a problem at the moment : (**

Lost Letters: Chapter 17

_7th__ August_

… _We're beginning to run low on food, but I think we've got enough for a couple more days. I still haven't managed to find any work, and Social Security are not going to want to know about me, so no dollars there. I'm beginning to think I've gotten myself into more of a mess than I realised. Maybe I should have just stayed where I was, maybe moving here was a mistake. But I guess I've only been here a few months, and I've made some good friends. The kindness of friends and strangers gets me through…_

………………………………_................_

As Flack, hurrying with an eye on his watch and the early hour of the morning, neared Danny's room, he saw two men standing by it. One was, he presumed, a doctor, given the white coat he wore; the other was a stocky man wearing a football jersey and a baseball cap. Both were talking in a rapid, and in the case of the doctor, agitated undertone. He did not look at Flack, but the man in the football jersey did, and a glance from under his cap, which he felt in its intensity, swept over him.

Flack made his own scrutiny of both men. Something struck him about the doctor, no, he corrected himself, the man in the white coat. White coat didn't mean doctor, any more than a badge and uniform meant a cop. Anyone could wear them; it was what was underneath the cover and the skin that counted, something he'd learned a long time ago. But it was still an easy judgement trap to fall into.

The closer he looked the more he would swear that this was someone who had never taken the Hippocratic oath; apart from there being no stethoscope or name badge for instance, there were things that identified him as _not_ a doctor in Flack's mind; his hands were black around the fingernails, and somehow his stance and demeanour were not right. Nothing he could define, just a feeling that he, and others, were being misled.

Flack paused with his hand on the doorframe, and decided to pose a question, using the smattering of medical knowledge he'd picked up from hanging out with Hawkes and Hammerback,

"Excuse me, Doctor, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind answering a question I got about my buddy's condition? Fact is, I don't know any medical jargon myself, but I've been told he has a thoracic haematoma. Means nothing to me. Could you explain that in plain English?"

Flack knew exactly what it meant, and that any junior grade doctor should be able to give him an explanation. The two men suspended their conversation and there was silence for a moment. From inside the room, he could hear Lindsay's, and what sounded like Adam Ross's voice, talking in lowered tones.

"Th - thoracic haematoma?"

"Yeah, what he said. You got a translation?"

The man looked at his companion in the cap, bypassing Flack's gaze. His hands were clenched at his side, and damp with perspiration.

The reply came hesitantly and in a voice that held no specific markers to origin: there was a trace of The Bronx, and Flack heard some of Danny's intonation in there, but there was also an undercurrent of the Mid Western states, and a Texan roll of his vowels. An accent from anywhere and nowhere.

"I, uh, I - that's not my area of expertise. I work in, uh, paediatrics, sorry. And I don't know who your buddy is, so I can't comment on his condition. I'm, uh, about to head home, just finishing my shift, y'know… Sure someone else can answer your question though."

Glass beads of sweat had appeared on the man's forehead. A trembling hand wiped them away. The other man remained silent, outwardly disinterested, but Flack felt watched; felt his eyes and mind pried open and felt creepers penetrating; searching out information.

Trying to maintain nonchalance, he let his gaze drift over the white coat, "No problem. I see you're busy. I'll ask another doctor. Maybe you could point me in the direction of one? Or maybe you could tell me when it's likely my buddy's doctor's going to make his rounds?"

The man was standing with his back against the wall. There was a bulge under the back of the coat, something concealed. It could be something innocent, it could not be.

He flicked his eyes downwards, and to his companion again, before his next sentence jolted out of him as his hand moved to swipe hair out of his eyes, and his head turned; jerky, marionette movements; strings pulled that Flack couldn't see but had a sudden intuition about. The other man stayed motionless at his side, still staring.

"No, uh, I don't know. This ain't - isn't my area like I said, different round times. Only came up here to meet my, uh, friend, before I left…"

Flack was suddenly aware of every sound around him; of every squeak on the floor from the man's sneakers as he shifted about; of the murmuration of voices further down the corridor. Under his palm, he felt the painted wood of the door, and under his eyes, he felt the gaze of the man in the baseball cap, peeling away all his layers.

So casually as to appear almost accidental, Flack lifted his arm to rub the back of his neck, and revealed his holster and badge.

"Uh huh. Well, thanks anyhow. Guess I'd better not keep you any longer." He raised his eyebrows as neither man moved, and hitched his thumb in the direction he had come, "Exit's that way."

The man in the white coat moved convulsively forward, "Yeah, yeah, sure, thanks. Uh, hope you find out what you need to. Sorry, I gotta, y'know…"

"Sure." Flack weighed his next movement carefully, and tipped the balance at waiting to see what transpired next. Lindsay and Adam's voices had died away now.

With a complete lack of expression, the man in the baseball cap blinked at Flack, who had the unnerving sensation that his photograph had just been taken; shutter open, lens exposed, a flash from dark eyes. Then the man turned and began to walk away, at the back of his companion, propelling him forward.

Flack also had every last pixel of the two men stored in his memory; from the marbled green and yellow bruise along the jaw of the white coat man to the manicured hands of the baseball cap man.

Hands were important: how you used them, whose you knew. Flack knew that and always noted them. He took good care of his own, though never to the extent of a manicure. He cared only that his hands were clean and functioning the way they should, and had a certain pride in the fact that he had never bought hand cream in his life; although some friends swore by it.

The hands of those you associated with gave away more than anything you disguised your own with. He thought of Lindsay with her hand on Danny's, and all the unconscious touches they gave one another when he worked a scene with them.

He thought of Stella, with Mac's hand on hers, not letting her go. As Mac had not let him go. It was the first sensation Flack remembered, after the explosion, after he had lost every other feeling in his body. The grip that he had responded to was when he first began to realise that he was alive, and might just _stay_ alive.

He thought of someone else's hands, and how they felt on his own, and the sensation of their proximity. He remembered the first time he met Jessica Angell, soon after he had returned to work following his injury, when she had walked right up to him, and taken hold of his hand; introduced herself with a smile in her dark eyes and a shock in the strength of her grasp. And Flack felt somehow that since that moment she had never let go of him.

Thoughts passed in seconds as Flack stood framed by the doorway, watching the two men walk away. It occurred to him that he might have let them pass too easily out of his hands.

Why were they outside Danny's room? Coincidence?

Flack had little faith in coincidences. He pushed himself away from the door, calling out, "Hey! Wait up a second."

The almost inevitable happened. They ran.

………………………………........................

Lindsay heard the shout; she and Adam had been listening for the last few minutes. Once she had established it was Flack outside the door, and that there was something odd about the discussion, she had motioned Adam to silence, and they both strained their ears to listen. Then she heard the running. Both of them jumped up.

"Something's wrong…"

She manoeuvred past Adam, "Wait here with Danny, I'll go check out what's happening."

Before he could argue, she was high-tailing down the corridor behind Flack.

………………………………........................

"Oh for…!"

Flack sprinted after the two men, and suddenly the corridors began to sprout people, as he shouted.

"NYPD, stop where you are! I want a longer conversation!"

They didn't stop, of course, so he kept running, closing the gap, his hand on his Glock. They ran on, blundering through a contingent of nurses, through people in uniform, through patients. Flack followed, dodging everyone in his path, with much-practised gymnastics of pursuit.

He pulled his radio out, shouted for back up, and yelled to a startled nurse to call hospital security.

The corridor was a long one, with obstacles coming up; chairs against the wall; a porter pushing a gurney along; more people. People that could be hurt.

Flack zig-zagged past everyone stopping, staring, seeing, no doubt, only a man running, not the danger they could be in. He had a suspicion, borne out of too many previous experiences, of what might be concealed under that white coat he was chasing.

They were nearing the end of the corridor, double swing doors ahead, he was only fifty yards or less behind them. They glanced back. Flack saw it coming as his mind leaped a few seconds ahead, and he dodged the chair they knocked into his path, barely losing his pace.

"Armed police officer, I'm ordering you to stop!"

In answer, the white coat was flicked back and the truth Flack had suspected was revealed. A handgun. In the wrong hands. Hands that yanked the safety off, and fired the weapon in his direction.

………………………………..............................

Her hands covered her face as she lay back on the pillows.

"Stella, I'm sorry…" Mac waited until she lifted her fingers away, uncovering eyes jewelled with tears, "I'm sorry."

While she gathered her composure, he let his hand rest, palm down, against her side, not knowing what else to say, or to do. Because he was sorry; sorry that because of one man pulling a trigger, days had been taken out of her life; that she was now lying in a hospital bed; and that he had just had to tell her she was not the only one who had suffered harm at the hands of one man.

He had answered Stella's question first; how long she had been unconscious, then he told her the bare facts of the missing days; not everything yet. She had added a few words of her own in his pauses, and questions which he had tried to anticipate, to save her the effort he could see it was costing her to talk.

Mac had not wanted to tell her about Danny, but she had asked; almost immediately, she had asked if anyone else had been hurt. Stella knew him too well for him to lie. But he had hidden some of the ugliness of the truth from her, for now, saying only that Danny had also been injured, and was recovering slowly. He had not been able to prevent his eyes from flickering away from her, and he knew that she realised there was more to know.

"Stella, Danny'll be okay…" Mac drew her eyes back to him, but before he could continue, his cell phone interrupted. He pulled it out, recognising the number flashing, and stared at it for a moment.

Stella gave him a piercing look, "You going to… answer that?" .

He did, frowning, "Flack? Everything all right?"

The answer was loud enough for them both to hear.

"No. We got ourselves a problem, Mac."

……………………………….................................

Flack stared at the scene as he spoke to Mac, "A big problem. Listen, I'm assuming you're still with Stella, so stay there, and unless you're absolutely certain of their identity do _not_ let anyone else into the room, you got that?"

The inevitable questions poured into his ear, but he shook his head, "Mac, I'm sorry; ain't got time right now to explain everything, just please, trust me on this, do as I'm asking, and I'll be up to you soon as I can, okay?"

He received Mac's affirmative, and flipped his cell phone closed; then turned back to face the corridor, and the chaos that had ensued from the chase, and gunfire.

Only two shots in the end: one from the man in the white coat, who Flack would now say without any hesitation was _not_ a doctor, and one from his own weapon. His bullet had fired harmlessly into the doors; the other, however, had left a trail of damage.

Flack knelt down beside the woman sitting on the floor, supporting her back against the wall, legs out into the corridor. Her face was drawn, and blood streamed from her arm, but there was unmistakeable fire in her eyes, "Everyone okay, Flack?"

"Fine, and I guess I ought to thank _you_ in part for that, Lindsay. Though I'd like to know what you were doing chasing up behind me. More to the point, how you doing yourself?"

She shrugged, then winced, "Thought I might be useful, and I'm good honestly, Flack, it's just a graze. Think the bullet kind of bounced off of me before it hit the wall…"

"And before it hit the old guy over there, I know what you did, don't overdo the modesty, okay?"

Mayhem had happened in seconds. The gun firing, Flack diving to the side, whirling round in time to see Lindsay pushing an elderly gentleman to the side, and crashing to the ground as he heard the 'ping' of the bullet zip past and into the wall. It had hit no one, only glanced off Lindsay's arm. Luck, sheer luck. Flack shuddered with the other paths that bullet could have taken, but nodded at the CSI, "Go get yourself checked out."

"I will, but I'm okay."

Flack looked her straight in the eyes, making sure she really was okay, before he got to his feet, and called over a nurse, a real nurse, to make sure that the bullet had done no more damage than Lindsay was admitting to. Hands helped her to her feet, people clustered round her, and Flack left them to it.

The two men had escaped, but he had hospital security, and his own squad after them now. And, besides the bullet, they had left a little something else of themselves; as the gun had been pulled, something had fallen from the back pocket of the man in the white coat and smacked onto the floor. With a glove in his hand, Flack picked up a much-folded, four day old copy of The New York Times, and things began to click together in his mind. If what he thought was true, then until the two men that had temporarily eluded him were caught, Mac's team were still in grave danger.

………………………………..............................

Monochrome images of two running figures appeared and disappeared across a bank of television screens; a wall of eyes that could only look, could not do. The figures ran and shoved, and scrambled until they disappeared over the edge of the last screen. All that was left in the corner of the picture was a white coat, discarded as its wearer became someone else in the world beyond the doors of the hospital.

……………………………….....................

"So why've you not killed me yet dude? I've known you long enough to know that's how it usually ends. I've carried most of 'em out for you, so I know."

They were standing by a disused railway sidings, running parallel to the river. Tracks and rails that had been left for so long that nettles and grass had wound round and twisted them, embedding and taking re-possession of the thick steel lines, making them part of them. Transforming them into thick green pathways that no train would ever pass along again.

TJ shaded his eyes as he looked out over the river. The morning light spread blinding silver brushstrokes over the grey water, only bearable to look at for a second. He turned his gaze to a point beyond Rich's shoulder.

"Why have I not killed you? Good question, _very_ good question, Rich. You want to know? Truth is, you're more use to me alive than dead, despite the royal screw-up you've made. I ain't taking a part of what you did back there. _You_ screwed up. Unfortunately, that means you've screwed up for me too. However, _you're_ the one who's gonna sort the mess out."

Rich had nothing more to say for the moment. His hands fiddled in his pocket, and pulled out a squashed pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He dropped the lighter; bent down to pick it up, and found TJ's foot crushing his hand into the dirt, smashing the lighter into useless pieces.

"Smoking's a dirty habit, Rich. Gets you into trouble, damages your health, starts fires. You'd know about that, wouldn't you?"

Rich bit back his curse of pain, he would not show weakness. Any weakness and TJ would find it and destroy him with it. As he had seen him do many times before to others, with his help.

Sun beat down on the back of his head. The boot crushed down harder, and twisted on his hand, he heard ligaments and bones crunching, felt shards of plastic puncturing his skin, and hissed in agony, "Listen… I got… I got ideas, TJ…"

"Don't want to hear 'em, Rich. So far your ideas ain't turned out too good for me. So I'm thinking it's time you took notice of _my_ ideas."

"Sure… sure… whatever you say."

"I do say. I also say, even though _you_ might not think so, there are other ways to get rid of unwanted witnesses than blundering into a hospital with a loaded gun, getting yourself noticed. Where did you think that was gonna get you Rich, huh?"

Another twist of TJ's foot. Rich bit his tongue, tasted blood in his mouth, spat it out onto the ground. Under the sole of the boot, he could see blood and scraped skin. Blood on his hand. He hadn't expected his own. He waited.

"Nowhere. So now we think of something else. Hospitals are dangerous places, Rich, very dangerous. All those drugs for instance, and interns with no training, no money..."

Rich risked a glance upwards. TJ's face blocked out the sun except for a nimbus of hellish light. He continued with a smile, "All very dangerous in the right hands."

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please review and let me know what you think! Will try and post the next one in a few days. Thank you, Lily x**


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 18: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope the last one was okay even though the outcome was maybe not what was expected; there's still plenty of peril to come :D Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. **

**Thank you to **_**Fat Kat **_**and **_**Juliette**_** for your reviews, and to **_**Blue Shadowdancer **_**and **_**sarramaks**_** for reading.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 18

_6__th__ August_

…_Both of us were feeling pretty sick of staring at the same four walls in the apartment, so we took ourselves out to find what we could do for free. There's more than you might think; we had an awesome afternoon in the park and trying on clothes in Bloomies and Saks, clothes we had no intention of buying of course. Though Joe did tell me that when he's made his fortune, the first thing he's going to do is take me out shopping. Believe me, I'm going to hold him to that…_

………………………………_.................._

They were all there, as many as there could be. Still three down though, with Mac still at the hospital, and that was noted in faces bereft of smiles, laughter that died before it began, and chairs that were empty.

Sid sat himself by the door; the best place to observe everyone who entered. Hawkes sat down next to him with a quick, tight nod as the last person in shut the door firmly.

Flack, leaning his weight against the end of the table, looked a pale and lined shadow of himself. Sid stared in concern, seeing instead of the young detective he was used to encountering, a man slowly caving under pressure.

A pressure they all felt. They all knew what had happened at the hospital yesterday, the near miss. Sid could not imagine what Flack was feeling at this point, having had their probable suspect in sight, in snatching distance, only to lose him. But he had not escaped without leaving traces of himself behind. He glanced at Lindsay whose blouse only partially concealed the bandage on her upper arm, and felt his stomach sink at the thought that there had nearly been another empty chair in the room, and another bed in the hospital filled.

Lindsay looked up, smiling quickly at him, and Sid suddenly saw a difference in her. The real Lindsay that had almost died away at the vanishing point of the crime scene, was slowly reviving. He smiled to see her.

Glancing at Detective Angell, who had pulled up a chair at his side, Flack took a stance and faced the room, lacking none of his authority, despite his exhaustion, "Okay, we all know why we're here. For anyone who doesn't, this is where things are at: we had a security breach yesterday at the hospital, where we believe our suspect for the attempted murder of Detective Messer and Detective Bonasera, tried another attack. We now have officers stationed there, and everyone on alert. Needless to state, this case and everything connected to it, is our priority." He spread a deck of files across the table, "What I need you to do is share everything you have on the evidence side, and Detective Angell and I will do the same. Hammerback, you first: the three vics, what's the link?"

Sid angled his elbows on the arms of the chair and laced his fingers together. He felt his glasses slide down his nose as he began, "As you say, three vics, all linked: Jane Doe from the first scene, COD, shot to the forehead; John Doe, the body in the lake, same COD; Ditto our third vic, the John Doe in the car…"

"Who we think is one of the bastards who ran Danny down, and shot and abducted Stella." Flack interposed with a snarl, losing his professional restraint momentarily. A murmur ran round the room.

The interruption gave Sid time for his thoughts to coalesce, "As yet, I've still not been able to determine identity, although Sheldon is working on a facial reconstruction of our third vic. That's about all I can tell you for now." He wished it wasn't.

"Keep at it."

Sid leaned back in his chair and set his mind to the puzzles within and without: three people with no known names, but no less identity, who waited for their naming in the place that gave him his definition. Not long, he had promised them, he would not make them wait long.

Hawkes had more to offer, "I got five matching bullets: three from our vics; the one that hit Stella; and the one we took out of the wall at Trinity yesterday." Along with everyone else, Sid glanced at Lindsay, who kept her eyes fixed on the table and her arms rigid at her side, "Striations match; all from the same gun, .22 calibre, Smith and Wesson revolver."

"And likely the same shooter. Damn." Flack's eyes pulled all of them in, "_Damn_. I had him. He was right there in front of me, and I let him go. Do you know how much that pisses me off?" There was no answer to give him.

"Flack, it wasn't your…" Hawkes spoke up, but Flack beat the rest of his placation down as his palms smacked onto the table.

"Believe me, I'd like to think that, I really would, but in this case it _was_ my fault, and I'm going to have to deal with that. But until we catch this guy and his associate, I'm not going to waste my time or anyone else's wracking myself with guilt. I screwed up, and I'm going to fix it." Slivers of blue ice looked round, and Flack continued unhindered, "So what else? Aside from bodies and bullets."

A throat cleared, and Adam's voice caused heads to turn his way and almost obscure his words. Sid gave him an encouraging smile, "I, uh, I mean, _we_ have the post office box key that - that Dr Hammerback found in the second vic. I managed to get a partial serial number off of it, and uh, Lindsay and Hawkes and I have narrowed it down to belonging to one of two companies in the city, and one of eight hundred and twenty boxes. Kendall and I are trying to cut the number further, eliminating active boxes."

"Good job." Flack nodded, and passed on to the next person and the evidence they had. Sid watched and listened to it all, and the morning passed into afternoon.

They did not have much beyond the victims, the bullets and the wreck of their team; but the evidence was building, and was beginning to match up and reveal. The partial footprint from the original crime scene matched a partial print from the hospital; the fragments of paper that Adam had found on and around the body in the lake, he had identified as a common brand of writing paper and envelopes; the suspect descriptions from the witnesses at the first scene matched the description Stella's rescuer had given Angell, and Flack was also hoping for a description from Stella herself, if possible; finally they had what the security cameras had caught at the hospital - a sequence of smudged and shadowy escaping images.

Despite what they had though; who and why was still missing.

………………………………..................

"Who do we have, Rich? Give me names and faces, then I want to know why."

They were in a diner in the middle of Manhattan. One of a well-known chain, who specialised in the uniform blandness of their décor, and innocuous and unchallenging menu.

TJ never ate in one too often to be noticed; he exchanged just enough conversation with the staff and left tips that were never too small, never too big, always unremarkable. If asked to describe him, he was certain that any of the waitresses or bus boys would be unable to say more than that he was a white male in a baseball cap, medium height, medium build. No more, no less.

As he impelled Rich towards a high-backed booth at the side of the diner, TJ waited for an answer.

The other man shrank into the corner, and pressed against the hot glass, before he obliged. He gave him the names he already knew; of the two detectives he had failed to kill; and the other two detectives investigating Rita's murder. TJ added the name of the detective they had encountered yesterday at the hospital, whose name he had made it a priority to discover. It had not taken him long: he knew many people, many names, many past misdemeanours.

He ordered fries and sodas and looked out at the passing of the city through the window as he waited. Lives passed by a dust streaked pane. His reflection overlaid the figures that walked past blindly; Rich's was an insubstantial blur.

The order arrived, and TJ worked through it, steadily pronging fries with a fork, and dabbing his mouth with a napkin. Rich sat and picked at his food, before shoving it away.

"Not hungry? Don't like to see good food go to waste, Rich." A small smile played over his lips as his companion gagged and choked down some more food, leaving remains. Remains he would have to dispose of, as always.

Rich had become an impetuous liability. He had caught up with him just in time yesterday, after Troy's tip off. Too messy, too impulsive. Sometimes it paid off; he had been useful in the past, but now TJ was reaping the whirlwind of his actions, and he was not going to be doing so for much longer.

It was up to TJ whether the detectives lived or died: Rich wanted them dead because they had seen him, but that wasn't going to matter for much longer. None of their lives or deaths mattered. What mattered to him was his own life.

The detective with the short crop of hair and the penetratingly blue eyes had become a definite threat. But one or even five fewer detectives in the New York Police Department was not going to trouble him. One death or five deaths, if they drew attention away from himself, then he would make them happen. Rich could take the fall.

Rich's methods would not work this time, not anymore. He left a mess; he left bloodstains and ashes; he left too much of himself. TJ left nothing of himself, his true self. The detective had not seen all there was to see.

TJ straightened his schemes in his mind. Chaos was not the order of the day. To eliminate who he wanted to this time, he needed organisation, traceless methods, clean deaths. He had people he knew, young and vulnerable minds, free from the clutter of thinking, and in many cases conscience. A word here and there and a few handfuls of bills and people would cease to exist. And he had already spoken the words. No mess, no panic, no trace.

Yesterday, Rich had broken all those cardinal rules, forcing him into an undignified and messy flight out of the hospital with nothing accomplished. He looked at him now, spinning his empty soda glass round and round on the surface of the table, smearing an ooze of ketchup. TJ put his hand on top of the grimy bandage around the other man's hand, stopping the movement. No more mess.

"Remember what I told you yesterday, Rich? Keep yourself out of trouble. Now listen up: your associate Troy is about to undertake a second job for me, which leaves me in need of your company tonight. We got ourselves some urgent visiting. And if Troy screws up again, it adds an extra call to our list. Think you can handle that?"

Rich looked at him, and TJ saw death's harvest already in his eyes, "What choice do I got, dude?"

TJ smiled, "Whatever choice you want."

It didn't matter. It would all end the way he chose.

………………………………...............

She had no choice in the matter now, Mrs Adams was worried. It was more than six days since she or anyone in the apartment block, as far as she knew, had seen Rita. Joshua, whose judgement she trusted more than any human, had clinched her concern. He was suffering the girl's absence, and letting her know very clearly with the salvo of wounded glares he shot at her every time he padded up the steps on purposeful paws, and came trailing back down in disappointment. And he was getting thin; chewing his food with exaggerated disdain, before leaving most of it in his dish,

Mrs Adams was worried about him. She was sure a ridge of bone was beginning to make itself felt under his now less than glossy coat.

"Oh, Joshua-boy." She murmured into his fur, running her hands along his back. Hands whose skin had darkened to a deep walnut brown under the sun; that even with their calluses and lines ingrained deeper than bark, were gentle over his older than she liked to admit, body, "Don't you be leaving me any time soon."

The sun shone on and on, reaching its late afternoon zenith and Mrs Adams's nadir of discomfort. Everything prickled and itched in the heat, and she had spent the last hour flat out on her bed, sinking into the lumps and gullies of her old mattress. Joshua dozed at the end of the bed, in the hollow that his weight had made over the years. One paw extended, resting on her foot, and his one eye open a hairline; keeping watch, Mrs Adams liked to think.

Suddenly his eye opened wide, and its burnished depths stared out of the bedroom door; his ragged ear stood to attention and his paws stretched and lifted him upright. In a moment he had leaped silently off the bed and paced to the door.

Mrs Adams was wide awake. Joshua was better than any guard-dog. There was a sound in her apartment, the sound of an intruder, she was certain. It was not Rita's step, the only other person who had a key and a legitimate right to be there. She rolled off the bed, and motioned for Joshua to stay behind her. From the side of her bed, she picked up the stave of wood she kept there, and had always kept without needing to use it. The one time she had, the burglary six days ago, it had been uselessly out of reach. She did not want to use it, but she was prepared to.

Silently, she tiptoed into the sitting room, and saw a young man with his back to her. She recognised him instantly as the same that had previously invaded her home. He had not seen her, being too busy forcing open closets and boxes; rifling through her private papers and secrets, trampling over her letters.

Anger overtook her, and she brought the piece of wood cracking down onto the back of his head. He dropped to the floor with a groan, and a thin dribble of blood appeared through his spikes of blonde hair.

Mrs Adams gasped, and the weapon dropped to her side; she had done it, she had hurt someone; she was responsible for shedding the blood of another person…

Someone who would have hurt her, and Joshua. Someone who had held a knife out in threat to her last time; who would have shed her blood with no compunction. Now she had committed violence herself, but knew she would do it again, if she and those she loved were threatened. That knowledge exhilarated and terrified her.

With the toe of her ancient slipper, Mrs Adams prodded the boy who did not move, only groaned again, "Thought you'd come in here again and get the better of an old lady and her old cat did you boy? Thought you'd picked an easy target, huh? Well, that ain't the case. Now see how _you _like it!"

She skittered into the kitchen, heart pounding, and tore open drawers until she found a coil of electrical flex. It took only moments to bind his hands and feet as tightly as she could, and then she dialled for help. It took only minutes for blue and red lights to flash and dazzle down through her window.

……………………………….....................

The sunset had melted through the window a few hours ago. It was an improvement on the first room Stella had woken to; a room which had contained no more to see than the walls she was trapped within; no windows and only a door she could not get out of.

They had moved her the day before, following the incident that neither Mac or Flack had yet told her the full story of. It was not much of an improvement on her situation though: she could still not get out of the room herself, or the bed. Nor could she even move much without her breath getting lodged somewhere inside her chest and hurting her, and the hot ache in her side starting to rage and throb.

She had woken an hour or so ago from a nightmare of windows. Buildings covered in blank eyes, graphite glassed and opaque, watching her, trapping her. Then they had changed into real eyes, the same that felt like they had bitten into her, the last thing she had seen before her memory stalled.

Bits and pieces were starting to return to her though; she held them tightly, waiting for the rest to come back. Mac held some of them too and she knew that he would tell her; but other people held the rest, and she did not know if she would ever have them returned.

Time, memory, control. All of it taken from her, to torment her, and there was very little at the moment she could wrest back. Stella pushed herself to sit up as much she could manage, suppressing a hiss of pain, then she leaned back on the pillows that were too soft, and took a few moments to retrieve her breath; counting one for every flower head in the vase of dahlias Sid had given her, their softness of beaten gold stiffened to black card in the dark. The window at least had given her day and night back.

Mac, an anthracite outline in the twilight of the room, was still sleeping, her movement had not disturbed him. His presence in the room she both welcomed and resented; not him, not Mac himself, but that he was there, choosing to sleep at the wrong hours in a chair she knew was uncomfortable. And she hated that he felt he needed to be responsible for her. Stella took responsibility for herself, she did not want anyone else to do so, but in the last few days, she had lost that choice. She was reliant on others, and that hurt most.

Other than Mac, who she trusted implicitly, there were very few people she would voluntarily entrust with her life; but in this situation, she was forced to extend her trust to and put blind, unquestioning faith in every person who walked into the room.

Most of them, she did not even know their names.

The night crept under her eyelids and she slipped into a half-sleep, waking again in the half-light of morning as the door opened and a very young, very nervous member of staff entered holding a paper cup of more medication. Stella took it from her without question.

………………………………................

Danny's father did not trust doctors, or many other people. He asked questions, he argued, he demanded second opinions. But he was asleep as the door opened and another member of the medical staff who came in and out almost every hour, entered with hesitant steps.

Danny's mother smiled blankly at the young woman as she adjusted the IV line in her son's arm, and then left as silently as she had arrived. Nothing changed, not at first, but then as her eyes were closing and her head was toppling onto her husband's shoulder a thin, horrible line of sound jerked them both awake. She saw what made the sound. She heard herself shouting, screaming, as the room suddenly filled with people.

"Danny? _Danny_! No! _No_! Not my baby! _Danny_…"

.

**Please review and let me know what you think, good or bad. All thoughts and suggestions welcome! Thank you, Lily x**


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 19: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. **

**Thanks… to **_**iluvcsi4ever**_** for discussion of poisons (authorial purposes only!) and for dedicating another one-shot to me in 'The One With…' : to **_**Juliette**_** and **_**fat kat**_** for your reviews; and to **_**Shining Zephyr **_**for being my 200th, 300th and 400th reviewer. Sorry this is late, and that my own reviewing and replying has been delayed. **

Lost Letters: Chapter 19

_5th August_

…_I'm playing nurse today to Joe who's currently lying and groaning on the sofa, complaining the heat's too much for him and makes him sick. He's not the only one affected, but he doesn't listen if I tell him that. And Joshua's been here, raiding the fridge. I think he's been brawling again; his ear looks even more ragged than usual, so I ended up treating him with antiseptic and a can of tuna. Two males vying for my attention this afternoon, some might consider me lucky…_

………………………………_..._

"_Danny!_ Danny, baby, please, _please_…"

No one heard, no one listened, no one reacted. Her son was surrounded by strangers and she could not reach him. Someone held her, their arms around her as she struggled to reach him. She could not reach him…

………………………………...

"You still got your young man, girl?"

It had been a week since Lindsay had last seen Mrs Adams; a week in which the world had almost fallen off its axis for herself and the team. Though it was not hard to remember the afternoon spent in the company of Detective Markham and the doughty old lady who had now single-handedly caught the young man who had robbed her, and threatened her life. He was currently in Markham's custody, whilst Lindsay had spared an hour to process the scene, promising to catch up with the detective when she finished.

Mrs Adams was a lady of questions, which Lindsay found herself answering again; more questions than she had been able to ask herself, but no less pertinent. At least her bandaged arm was hidden beneath a light jacket; she did not feel up to explanations about that.

The final question had come as she was leaving. Lindsay stopped at the door, desperate to escape before she answered more than she wanted to, "I've still got him…"

_Don't ask me any more…_

Her barriers were tissue paper to the old lady, "But? I know faces, girl, and hearts. They show themselves when you get to my age. Something's wrong inside yours. What's happened to him?"

Her heart was torn and exposed, "He - he was in an… an accident, a week ago. He was hit by a car…"

"And you're spending every hour spare, and every hour you can't spare at his side, huh? I see how it goes, girl."

The hand, gnarled and bark-burled, that Mrs Adams placed on Lindsay's arm, was strong; years of life flowing through it.

Lindsay could only nod, overwhelmed by the tears tugging at her lips.

The steadying grip tightened, "He's got my best wishes, girl. Tell him that. However you tell him. Things get hard to say to him, don't they?"

A transparent heart to shrewd, amber eyes. What could she say? Lindsay looked at her, half in fear, half in a sudden rush to let go her reserve, bare her terrified self, and blurt out that yes, when she sat there at Danny's side, alone, as he was just… just lying there; there was nothing to say to fill the empty air and the dead silence, and the words… the words were too loud and too quiet because he took no notice of them… he just lay there, saying nothing, nothing…

"Sometimes…" She whispered.

"Then write them down, girl, write the words down. Fasten them onto paper and ink, keep them safe for him that way. For both of you." The old lady gestured at the boxes piled around them, "It's what I've done all my life. Words are my life, and it's all held here. All of me, all in here somewhere, given away. Reckon there's more of me there than's left in this old body of mine."

She let go of Lindsay to stroke the cat who was smarming round her legs. Her hands disappeared amongst his fur, matching colours, "You ever write letters, girl?"

Lindsay shook her head, but she remembered what had probably been the last letter she wrote; to a distant great aunt who had sent her a crocheted bed-jacket for her thirteenth birthday.

Her mother had been insistent, beating down her teenage disgust, standing over her whilst she threw down a couple of insincere sentences onto a tatty piece of paper, resenting the cents the stamp had cost, and the journey to buy it.

Great Aunt Doll had died shortly after that, and the bed-jacket had disappeared unworn into the farthest corner of her closet. Thank-you letters became thank-you phone calls, and relatives sent checks. And when her friends and her carefree life were lost irrevocably, some things became unimportant.

"I don't really get the chance to."

"Then take the chance, girl, it's never too late…"

………………………………...

The figure on the bed jolted and was still again. Everything was still. Everyone. Still no change or movement in the line showing on the monitor. Danny's mother, unceremoniously pushed into the corner of the room, could not move. Danny's mother; she was no other self at the moment. Only half aware that Danny's father was the one whose arms were round her. They could only watch their son's fight, pray for the defeat of the enemy waiting in all the other corners. Life's eternal opponent. Waiting in the darkness. Close, too close…

………………………………...

Lindsay nodded, and lifted her eyes, "I will… thank you."

The moment passed, she became Detective Monroe again, "Are you going to be all right here alone, Mrs Adams? Is there anyone you can call?"

The old lady picked up her cat, who opened his mouth in a warble of protest, "Joshua and me'll be okay, girl. We got each other to take care of. And I got some good neighbours. Leastways, I did have…"

Something in her voice made Lindsay ask, "Something wrong with a neighbour? You've had some trouble."

Mrs Adams's lips pursed, "No, nothing like maybe you're thinking. Truth is… truth is, I'm worried about Rita. Haven't seen sight or sound of her since a week past now, and neither's Joshua. It's not like her not to call in. She only lives above me, but I've heard no footsteps from her. Girl's got friends and a boyfriend, but she's never been away this long from her apartment. She would have told me, asked me to water her window-boxes, keep an eye on things for her."

"Have you reported her missing? If it's been a week and you're concerned…"

"I'm reporting it now." She pressed the cat closer to her chest, and his golden eye blinked at Lindsay, "What do I need to do to make it official?"

Lindsay made a hasty decision, "I can take down details, Mrs Adams, as much as you know."

"Good. Thank you girl, it'll put my mind at rest."

The cat finally wriggled free and plopped onto the floor, then dashed through Lindsay's legs and out of the door. Mrs Adams sighed, "Joshua's taken it real hard, he loves his Rita-girl…" She delved into the pocket of her apron, "Got a picture of her somewhere, which oughtta help you I'm thinking…"

"Certainly." Lindsay held out her hand in expectation, but the old lady pulled out the pipe she recognised from their last visit, and drew her instead back into the kitchen, "Got it pinned up on the refrigerator. Boyfriend took it of her and Joshua, gave me a copy. Here." She unstuck a snap-shot of a dark-haired girl cuddling Joshua and handed it to Lindsay, "Wouldn't mind having it back if you can do that. Don't have many photos, never owned a camera myself, kept the memories in my words."

"I'll take a copy, Mrs Adams." Lindsay reassured her, "I'll take care of everything you've trusted me with."

The old lady faced her, and Lindsay felt diaphanous again, "I can see that you will, girl. And I can see you'll be taking heed of what I've said to you. Keep a hold on that young man of yours"

………………………………...

The same sound. An unwavering line. Still fighting though, fighting back, his mother knew he would. He had to.

"Charging. Clear!"

Faces that were all eyes and mouths, shouting nonsense words now; she didn't care what they meant. Another charge of life through her son. Still fighting…

………………………………...

Heat radiated from the stainless steel sky turning sidewalks to the Sahara underfoot. Shivering-hot air, tasting of dust and metal clung round Lindsay as she walked away from the old lady's apartment, re-building the present from the components of the past. She retraced the steps of a week ago, imagining she saw the same faces on the streets, the same turn of leaves on the plane trees, the same flotsam and jetsam on the ground…

Something hidden to most eyes, caught beneath a newspaper dispenser, snagged her gaze. Something that had been yellow, possibly, under all the dust. Something that had writing nearly obscured beneath the muck and obscurity of the streets. Instinct directing her, Lindsay picked up the envelope and froze as she saw the name and address written in the left hand corner.

………………………………...

"Again! Increase to four hundred…"

Still fighting, still fighting. Danny's parents put their life into him. One man, one life on the brink, one immeasurable line still drawn. Not to be crossed. Not now, not today…

………………………………...

As expected, Lindsay found the ME in the morgue, poring over files and wearing a frown of concentration. She had come down as much for the case, and what she had found, as to see Sid himself; not being able to remember the last time she had spoken to him simply as a fellow human being.

He looked up and closed the files with a smile as she approached, "Lindsay, how are you?"

It stopped the automatic response. He hadn't asked her. In the last week, nearly every greeting to her had come with a suffix attached, or was the greeting itself, rendering her almost invisible, 'How's Danny?'. Not that she minded. Not at all; she wanted people to ask and to know, and she wanted to be able to give them a different answer than she always did, but…

But there was a small part of her that she was trying to keep locked away that resented losing herself in someone else and to someone else. She hated herself for it. Her. Me. Lindsay.

Lindsay and Danny. She loved him, and the greater part of her enjoyed the duality. But she was an individual as well as a couple.

"Lindsay?"

"Sorry… I'm good, Sid, thanks. Thanks for asking." Her hands were toying with a pen, and the words were out before she could stop them, "Aren't you going to ask me about Danny?"

Sid blinked at her, "I wanted to know how _you _were. And I'm going to call in on Danny later today; Stella too." He continued in a gentle voice, "Have you been to see her yet? I know she'd appreciate a visit."

The pen trembled in Lindsay's fingers, "I - I haven't, no. After what happened, about - about the car when I… I guess everyone knows, huh?"

"No, no, they don't. I know only because Sheldon was with me when you called. There's nothing more to know anyhow. You called it in."

"But it should have been _sooner_. It would have made a difference." She said desperately, trying to hold back the torrents of guilt that were too near the surface.

"It might, but it might not. I don't think those few minutes made a difference, Lindsay. Don't condemn yourself for it, no one else is. Trust me on that."

His eyes held her carefully, and she managed to gulp back some control, before thrusting towards him the evidence she held, needing to return to safe territory, "I think I may have found something new on one of our vics."

It lit his face up, "That's good to hear. What have you found?"

"Connections. Well, that's what I've made. It started with a conversation, led to a photograph, and then to a letter. I went from there."

"Where did you get to?"

"Our Jane Doe, the girl with the letters."

Sid hastily clipped back his glasses, "Give me just a moment." He pulled out the body of the girl, unwrapped her, "You said you had a photograph?"

Lindsay felt a sad smile cross her face as she looked at the images of the two still faces in front of her. She held the picture out to Sid, "And a name for our Jane Doe. This is Rita Franklin, Sid."

………………………………...

_Danny! Danny! Hold on, baby, hold on, please…_

He was beyond her cries. No one breathed. The room held its breath and theirs. Silence sliced through by the unbroken wail. And then it stopped. For a second of eternity, there was only silence. Danny's mother saw him, saw all his life in a stream of noise and colour, every drop she knew of it and held inside her, running away from her…

And then it returned, broken, hesitant, but there.

"We got a pulse! We've got him back…"

Only her husband's arms around her stopped them both from collapsing. She held onto him. The fight was over; for now; for another day. Danny held on.

………………………………...

Stella pulled herself free of the sleep that had wrapped round her again like a whirlpool. She was so tired, drowning in tiredness, so easy to slip back in… No. _No. _Even though she felt as if there were treacherously soft, white waves inside her head and surrounding her, lulling her into unconsciousness… she fought her way to the surface again.

Held to the view of the sky: metallic; buildings like cut-outs pasted onto it in sharp relief.

Her thoughts cleared, and she noticed the empty paper cup on the table at her side. A vague memory surfaced from hours before of the varying shapes and colours of the pills she had swallowed. So many of them, so wearying.

Returning her mind to the room, she saw Mac was awake, a half-drunk cup of coffee in his hand. Seeing him, she managed a smile. His face was the one she had seen most since waking, but the one that had changed most; it was fatigued and wan, robbed of colour. Her own, she imagined, probably looked something the same.

His features wore the concerned look she had also come to know in the last few days since she had found herself still alive; to her surprise, and, as was not difficult to read in Mac's face, to everyone's surprise. It was something she was trying to banish from the nightmares that lingered and clung to her beyond sleep.

He asked her the expected question, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm…" Stella gathered her voice, still unpleasantly surprised at how much of an exertion that was; but it was improving. She was making it improve. "I'm all right, Mac. Really…"

He raised his eyebrows, and she raised her hands in resignation, "Okay, fine, you know what? It hurts like a bitch. But I can live with that… I'm okay."

"But you…"

_You nearly weren't_

She knew that.

"But I _am_. Stop the thought right there, Mac, because _I'm_ trying to do so."

There was suddenly anger in his eyes, misdirected at her, she knew, "Do you know how close you came, Stella? How close _we_ came to losing…"

She knew that too.

Her eyes matched his, "Going by where I am and how I felt when I woke up, and… and going by the fact you've hardly left my side _since_ I woke up… then yeah, I got a pretty good idea." A moment's pause as they challenged each other's gaze. Mac looked away first, and Stella continued, her expression becoming accusing, "I've been here a week… how long have _you_ been here? The same?" He didn't need to tell her, "You didn't have to do that, Mac. I don't need a babysitter…"

What she saw in his eyes as he looked at her again, needled her conscience, but she had to continue, "I'm sorry… I don't mean to be… be ungrateful, but you shouldn't have to be stuck here too, when you've got…"

"I _chose_ to stay, and I'd make that choice again, Stella."

Her eyes blurred and she crushed her fingers together as she continued, "I know you're probably pulling in all kinds of favours to be here. I don't imagine all our cases have miraculously dried up…"

"Our priority is the safety of both you and Danny. Especially following events the day before yesterday…"

"Which you still haven't fully told me about…" She pushed her hand through her hair, feeling it needing a brush and wash, "I know you think you're… you're trying to do me a favour by hiding things from me, but it's not helping. I need to know. I… I need to talk about what's happened." Stella paused, leaning back and biting her lips, drawing colour back into them, "I need to be doing something… something useful. Do you have _any_ idea how frustrating it is being here, Mac, feeling like I can't do anything?"

A spasm in her side made her catch her breath for a moment, and Mac's features tightened in concern, "I don't want you to push yourself. Give yourself more time…"

Ignoring the ache, she glared and sat up, "I've lost too much time already."

He stared into his coffee, then back at her and said quietly, "All right. But we take it steady."

"I'll set the pace."

A wry smile returned to his face, "Wouldn't dream of anything else, Stella."

They were interrupted by another young member of staff entering hesitantly, glancing at Mac first.

Stella took the cup of pills she was handed. So many… She looked more carefully. Too many? The girl was watching her, and the air in the room seemed too close. Mac was alert, also watching.

She hesitated, and decided to question, "Are you sure these are the right…?"

It happened in seconds: the girl spun sideways, striking Mac in the neck; and suddenly he was sprawled on the floor, coffee spilling in a shining black pool. And then the girl was lunging at her, pressing her hand over her nose and mouth before she could cry out, shoving her back hard into the smothering pillows.

Stella struggled, but her hands were seized, held down, the IV line torn out painfully. Nails dug into her skin as she fought back.

She was sinking and suffocating into nothingness… Still fighting though; resisting the pull of surrender, she wrenched one hand free, flung it out to the side.

_Mac… no one to help, no one else to help him, have to do this alone, alone…_

Her hand struck something solid; the glass vase with the flowers. Glass. Heavy. Not failing this time, her fingers closed round it. And she swung it with almost the last of her strength, hearing a crack, a cry and a smash; feeling sharp and soft fragments of water falling around her. Something heavy and yielding collapsed on top of her as the hand slid away from her face.

Mists and blurs of pain tried to submerge her… but Stella fought to keep hold of her self as the help that she had succeeded without poured into the room.

**Please review; I struggled a bit with this chapter, so any thoughts on it, good or bad, or any suggestions, are very welcome. Thank you, Lily x**


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer I own very little, especially not CSI NY.

**Notes**** Chapter 20: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! I hope you enjoy this chapter. NB one instance of swearing. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. **

**Thank you to: **_**iluvcsi4ever **_**and **_**webdlfan **_**for discussions and 'gentle pokes'; to **_**Blue Shadowdancer, **_**and **_**Marialisa**_** for reading and suggestions, and to **_**Marialisa**_** for sparking a thought on colours : ) Sorry again for delays in replies and posting - I have now finished my MA, so have more time to write this :D**

Lost Letters: Chapter 20

_4th August_

…_It's becoming clear to me that this is going to be one heck of a hot summer in the city; it's only the 4th day of August and already I'm finding it a chore to have to leave the apartment. Thank heavens for ice cream. A tub of the cheapest vanilla in the store (as my two favourite men, Ben and Jerry, were beyond my purse) has been keeping me company today whilst Joe's been out on his own private business. I'll find out soon enough about that though I guess…_

………………………………_..._

It was the late of the afternoon, when the day was building to fever pitch; sucking itself in and holding the city hostage to humidity; trapping it in a tight, swollen solar balloon. Too bright; the sky caught itself on the tops of the skyscrapers; burning, bleeding silver-gilt stains down concrete walls and through glass.

Occupied with thoughts other than the heat, not all unpleasant, Sid entered the hospital; rode up in the elevator to the floor he wanted; then strolled along the corridor. Towards Stella's room first, he had decided on the journey from the lab; Danny he would call in on afterwards.

It would be a proper visit this time, he was determined; not as three days earlier when all he had been able to do was place the vase of flowers at Stella's side as she was sleeping and clasp her hand for a few moments before an undertone conversation with Mac was over too soon and he was outside the door again.

That had been the day when, returning home after his visit, he had managed to give his wife more than a hurried 'goodnight' and 'sleep well' as they passed on the stairs - the conversation pattern that had been cut for them following recent events. He had presented her with a spray of carnations almost timidly; but she had accepted them with an unexpected delight; and it led to them sharing the preparation and eating of dinner together for the first time in too long.

And he had finally been able to share the burden of troubles inflicted on the team; it had spilled out of him too rapidly, but she had listened, and as he finished speaking, his arms hanging helplessly down at his sides, had enfolded him in an embrace more welcome following its absence. They had stayed like that; he in his chair, his wife behind him, her chin nestled into the crook of his neck and her cheek soft against his, whilst the food grew cold and unwanted.

Her carnations still bloomed, frowsy pink and mauve, by the front door; their scent catching him as he passed in and out of the house, reminding him.

Today, as he ambled along the corridor, he smiled at his plan to surprise his wife with an opera performance tonight, front row tickets; and hoped to find Stella awake so he could share and discuss the proposal with her - the first words exchanged with her for more than a week. As he neared the door however, he saw the uniformed officers outside it bursting in and his heart tripped a beat before banging in his chest as his feet flew the rest of the way.

Chaos met them: Mac unconscious on the floor; a girl in a hospital overall sprawled face-down across Stella, and a storm of glass shards, dripping flower stems, and water scattered all around her and over the bed.

Someone ahead of him had already dropped down beside Mac; as an armed uniformed officer dragged the stunned girl off the bed and onto the floor. Sid found his place and saw to Stella; sliding his arm around her, lending his support, and at the same time, making a rapid assessment.

Her eyes were dazed, but met his and were alive; still alive.

White and pinched though, and with crescent moons of fingernail marks on it, her face clearly showed the conflict that had happened. Sid kept his hold on her as her breathing calmed and slowed, and she collected herself back to full awareness.

"Is… Mac… Is he okay?" She clutched Sid's hand.

He looked over; Mac was surrounded by medical staff, and had still not moved, but he could see that his face was beginning to flicker into life again.

The girl, whoever she was, was similarly regaining consciousness. A uniform stood to close attention, tensed for any movement, even as a doctor knelt next to her and applied a pad to the bleeding wound at her temple.

Sid turned back to Stella, "Mac's in good hands, he seems to be coming round. Are _you_ hurt? Did she hurt you, Stella?"

Any more questions could wait for the moment.

Her other hand was pressed against her side, and he could hear the hitch as she breathed that belied her answer, "Not… not much… Think that was the intention though."

There was nothing he could say to deny that. Sid kept his presence close to Stella as the room filled, swirled and emptied round them.

………………………………...

It was still and quiet now; the door closing out the noise of the corridor and the passing bustle. But, as the three people inside it reflected, it could so easily have been filled with a different stillness.

Hawkes had joined Sid and Stella; and all of them sat absorbed in their own bewildered silence and thoughts for a few moments.

He had arrived with Lindsay following frantic phone calls from Flack; after being briefed by him, Lindsay had barely stopped to breathe before racing to join Danny's parents. Danny was in the Intensive Care Unit, his prognosis further uncertain; Flack suspected foul play after linking it with the attack on Stella, and they now had fingerprints and a contaminated IV line to confirm this.

They were minus Mac: the head of the lab, after much argument, and near brute force berating from Flack, was being checked over.

Entering just as Mac, groggily conscious, was being helped up off the floor, Hawkes had contributed his own voice to the persuasive fray. When Stella had added a word and a look, it sealed the decision; Mac left the room, assisted, after his and Sid's assurance that they would stay where they were. He had processed what he could of the scene, before returning to the human consequences of the crimes.

They had told neither Mac nor Stella yet about the deterioration in Danny's condition, and the blame attached to that. The moment would wait. And for the moment, Stella looked as if she had enough to think about: her eyes were dark and heavy, her hair drooping over her face, and Hawkes watched her anxiously as he finished tweezing the last splinters of glass out of her hand. She had been checked over and aside from tears in the back of her hand from where the IV had been pulled out and splinters of glass in her other hand, she was unharmed. The wound in her side from the gunshot was unaffected. She had been lucky, Hawkes knew.

Glancing at Sid, who nodded, he put a gentle question to her, "What happened, Stella?"

Stella raised her head to look at them both, "I don't… don't know entirely. It was so fast. I just - just had this feeling, you know, that something wasn't right when she handed me the medication. There… there were too many, so I questioned her and then… then she launched herself at Mac, and he was on the floor, and she grabbed…" She stopped, and took a deep breath, "She grabbed me."

"And then you stopped her. She didn't succeed, Stella, _you_ did." Hawkes dabbed with care at her hand, "Sorry…" As she winced.

"It's okay." Wet red lines criss-crossed her palm.

Hawkes dropped the final sliver of glass into a dish, and repeated, "I'm sorry..."

There were still pieces over the floor, crunching under his feet as he moved; petals slimy and greasy underfoot too. The mess and chaos left behind. Stella caught his eye again as she clenched her hand. A thin drip of blood fell onto the bedclothes and expanded. Darkness was trapped in her eyes.

"So am I, Hawkes. Someone really… really doesn't want me alive do they?" She shook her head, her lips pressed into narrow lines, and her gaze turned beyond him to the window, "Someone out there." And back to the room again, out of the door, "Or someone in here."

Neither Hawkes nor Sid could reassure her to the contrary. Silence fell in the room as the pressure of so many unknown eyes and minds within and without the walls they sat between watched and thought beyond their knowing. Too many to comprehend.

………………………………...

It was rush hour across Manhattan, away from the insides of buildings; as people poured outside, underground and over-ground onto buses and trains and taxis; back to their own insides.

A young woman pushed her way through barging crowds of pedestrians in the fathoms of the subway station, wrinkling her nose at the familiar smell of hot tar and oil on the platform, and the odours off too much human traffic.

With one hand clutching her seven month old daughter, and the other an assortment of carrier bags and a large rucksack full of diapers, bottles and all the paraphernalia that a very small person demanded, she struggled up the escalator and out into the small station forecourt. There was no sign of her brother, despite his promise to meet her and help with Alisha and her luggage after she had been to stay with their parents in New Jersey. He had confirmed by text message two days ago; but as she was beginning to regret, she had not chased him up to make good on the promise since then.

There was no sign of Christopher as she scanned the faces in increasing frustration. Alisha started to wail, and Janie felt a sticky patch of dribble on her shoulder as the baby made her own disappointment known.

Bouncing her gently as best she could without dropping the precarious balance of bags, she swivelled in all directions and still saw no familiar face and spikes of blonde hair belonging to her younger, and unreliable brother.

But there was a face coming towards her. A face almost hidden beneath a dark baseball cap; and a body hidden beneath a football jersey.

The face smiled as it approached her, and overrode her perplexion and prudence, "You're Janie? Christopher's sister, right? He sent me to meet you. Kid got held up, so I said I'd do him a favour and come meet you. I got us a cab waiting out front. Christopher's been doing a little work for me, so I'm returning the favour."

Before she could think any more, or caution herself that she did not know this man, Janie found herself led out into the sunshine, her bags lifted away from her hands, and herself and Alisha settled into the back of a cab. The man climbed in next to them, tapped on the glass and they were soon absorbed into the mosaic mass of cabs and cars of the city.

………………………………_..._

"So why'd you do it, huh? 'Cause that's what's puzzling me, you know, Meg. Why someone like you, who's volunteered to work in a hospital, would do what you did. Help me out here, give me some reasons, because I'm telling you, unless you do, you're up for a long stretch away."

Flack could not sit down. As he threw out his questions to the girl sitting lumped in the chair, he paced the room, stopping as he finished the last sentence and pressing his hands down on the table. Anger could not even begin to describe the sensations of blood whistling through his body and the pins and needles of the furies under his skin and in every vein.

Caught in the act of attacking Stella, and suspected as the reason for Danny's relapse, Meg Stevens - twenty years old from Brooklyn, no previous convictions - was infuriating him more every time he could bring himself to look at her. She sat sullen and silent; slumped shoulders, with a bedraggled expression, compounded by the gauze dressing just visible beneath a wispy fringe. So far, after an hour in the interrogation room, she had told him nothing. He had garnered some information from her silence though, and from the evidence she had left behind her in the hospital: fingerprints; epinephrine in Danny's IV; the lethal combination of drugs handed to Stella.

A lawyer, called from the public defenders office, sat primly at her side, groomed to the last degree and regarding Flack with a look reserved for the dust he knew would be completely absent from her home. Navy blue trouser suit, white blouse, symmetrically parted hair. The file in front of her was lined up with the corners of the table. She tapped a pen on it; the sound muted by the folder and its contents. Irritating. _Enraging._

Every word that was not forthcoming from his suspect, nibbled away at his professional control. Every minute that passed, that he did not have to spare, brought angry pulses of blood in front of his eyes.

"What happened?"

A shrug.

"What, you just decide you're going to try kill your patients? Why?"

Why? Why had Danny almost lost his life and been left with his recovery set back even further? Why had Flack had to see his parents shattered into their basic elements with the news that someone had deliberately harmed him? _Why? _Why had Stella had to fight for her life against someone who should have been helping her?

_Wham._

His flat palm hit the table, and finally provoked a reaction. Meg jumped, eyes flashed towards him. The lawyer was out of her chair in seconds. Her pen clicking onto the floor.

"Detective…"

Flack ignored her, "Someone put you up to this? Boyfriend maybe? Someone you owe a favour to? Or did you just lose it and decide to play the angel of death, huh?"

Her posture sagged again. Another shrug. Her attention turned apathetically to the strip of window high up in the wall.

"You going to tell me? Or am I going to have to make my guesses? Way I see it, you saw an easy way to make some money. Can't be easy, being at school, working two jobs, volunteering…"

Another shrug.

He was trying to understand, and failing. Trying to figure out why even a hospital was not safe. And failing. Flack boiled and seethed inside as the lawyer sat down again and murmured something indistinct to the girl. He was losing it; his blood vessels were beginning to melt down into ebullition; his control effervescing and with every more moment that passed, evaporating. Detective Flack, the investigating officer into the further assault on Detectives Messer, Bonasera and Taylor was becoming subsumed by Don Flack incensed at more harm done to Danny, Stella and Mac. His colleagues. His friends.

_You hurt my friends._

Why?

He realised he was pacing again, back and forth. Sputtering out impotent questions: what? why? who? Questions, no answers. 'Wh' sounds, useless, too soft, vague, breathless. The slow 'whump - whump' of the ceiling fan above them; blades of light falling round the room. And lightning bolts of anger incandescing inside him.

But he was seeing in violence now, seeing the curvilinear shapes of the girl and her lawyer and the watching uniformed officer, pull out and tauten to rectangles and lines, severe shapes, squares and cubes.

"So who was it? Who put you up to this? I ain't believing that you did this alone. You going to tell me, or you going to sit there all day? 'Cause I got the time, believe me. I got all the time I want to find out why you tried to kill three police officers."

Another indolent lift of shoulders. She did not even open her lips to confirm or deny or explain.

Beneath the hospital overall, the girl was wearing a baby pink shirt, pale pink shorts, powder pink flip-flops; blending into insipid peach-pink skin. Too much of it folding over the edges of the material. Her face was a rounded rosy moon, with undefined, overweight features; sandy eyebrows, drawn in doll-like; a smear of blusher across her cheeks and a faint sparkle of what he presumed was eye-shadow above pale lashes. He could barely see her eyes, disappearing as they were into hoods of skin. Cobra like. She looked out with lead grey irises. Blank expression. A face that could be written on with whatever you chose to see; or whatever she chose you to see.

Flack saw red. Rage red. Incarnadine blooms; clouds of magenta; spectrums of scarlet, deep cherry reds, carnation, iron, cardinal, claret, crimson lakes and scorching vermilion sunbursts in front of his eyes. His vision swam with the violence he had seen, that this girl had been part of.

_Bang._

A fist hit the table this time; cracked satisfyingly down onto the wood. It brought eyes towards him again. The file fell to the floor, lay like broken backed wings on the floor. He ignored it.

"You haven't answered me, Meg, and I'm getting impatient here. I don't think maybe you realise the seriousness of this situation - the attempted murder of three police officers. We got the evidence against you, we got the witnesses."

Nothing. The girl sat impassively. Flack spun round and let a beat of time slip past, and cursed himself for his slip. He had said too much too her, contradicted himself.

He had to stop. Breathe. His friends hurt again. Danny saved only by the skills of the doctors, and his own stubborn self, he was certain of that; Stella saved only by herself and the tenacious grip on life she had. And the sheer good fortune that Hammerback had given her a bunch of dahlias in a heavy glass vase. He would thank the man heartily next time he saw him. Before then though, he had to continue.

"I'm going to ask you again, Meg. Real slow so you can understand me; a real easy question; real easy to answer… _Why'd you do it, Meg?_"

He waited. The ceiling fan turned. The girl shrugged and Flack felt the situation slipping away from his grasp and sliding into a red slough of despair.

………………………………...

Dusky evening softened the cut glass edge of the day as the heat dulled. Angell entered the precinct and looked around. A colleague stopped and indicated behind him with his thumb, "He's in there."

She quirked her eyebrows at him, but made no further comment on how he could have known who she was looking for. Was she becoming that obvious? It didn't matter at this point.

She found Flack sitting at his desk; less movement than petrified wood in him.

"Don?" She crossed the room in a few strides, laying her hand on his shoulder as she reached him, "You okay?" It was difficult to discern that he was even breathing, "Don?"

His head moved stiffly; dry and cracked lips parted, "No. No, Jess, I'm not."

He looked at her finally as she sat on the edge of the desk, and her hand was gently lifting his chin, ""Don, you can't go on like this… talk to me. What can I do to help?"

Flack opened the file in front of him, "Meg Stevens. She finally talked. Two hours in interrogation and I got one sentence out of her, Jess. One fucking sentence."

Angell's fingers traced the line of his jaw, "What did she say?"

A laugh burned dry of any mirth came from him, "She said, 'He knows who you all are and where to find you.'"

Any heat left in the room died away. The ceiling fan above them cut light and shadows over the two detectives.

**Really hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please review and let me know either way, and I promise to have the next one up sooner! Thanks, Lily x**


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 21: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. **

**Thanks to _Fat Kat _and _Shadow Fox _for your reviews, and to _afrozenheart412 _for further thoughts and ideas on the story.**

**Thanks to _Blue Shadowdancer _for reading and episode information.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 21

_3rd August_

…_Mrs Adams called in this morning, Joshua pushing through in front of her of course, I think he's taken quite a shine to me. It's nice to be loved, even if it is just by a cat. No, not really, Joe mumbles something of the sort, sometimes, when I catch him off guard; you know how it is I guess. Anyhow, Mrs Adams brought us up some sweet peas from the tubs she's got in her courtyard. They smell delicious, and she's promised to refill the jug they're in as soon as they've faded. She's really the nicest neighbour you could ask for…_

………………………………...

Silence foremost in her mind and her surroundings. Silence composed of trebles and octaves of inorganic sounds; electric beats and quavers; syncopated pulses; out of tune. No human sound. She was lost in a peace and silence that didn't exist, that she didn't want; this dissonance that Danny had abandoned her in.

Lindsay sat and didn't speak; as she had sat for the last eight days; watching at Danny's side when she was able to. An hour before her shift began: she should have been sleeping, or eating, or paying bills; the thousand unimportant things that gathered dust. But she was here, and had no regrets.

Danny's parents had left her alone whilst they took some time to be with themselves. Time she was grateful for, knowing how precious each second had become with their son; measured and eked out in the artificial life pulse Danny now lived by.

_Danny…_

A son, a lover, a friend, and all the complications they brought. As unique as a drop of water, crystallized and frozen, absorbed into a fall of white drifts. But not lost, not for ever. And never just a number, never just a case file, never just another victim.

Danny.

Lindsay saw in their joined hands and the glint of rosary beads between Mrs Messer's fingers where his parents were leaving for. Before they walked out, feeling her cheeks flush, she asked them shyly to take her thoughts and prayers with them as well. What she believed, who she believed, she was not quite sure, and was always reticent of talking about. All she was certain of was the hope that someone would listen and answer.

Her hand was joined to no one else's, but wasn't empty. Lindsay had taken the old lady's advice to heart, even more closely now, and she sat beside Danny grasping an envelope and a piece of paper. The paper was covered in sloping script: her handwriting was barely practiced; she relied far more on keyboards that produced legible, clear and identical type. Which lacked her heart.

On looking at home last night, she had discovered that she still owned, amongst all the still-unpacked boxes from Montana, a pad of notepaper and a pack of envelopes. A set received as a childhood birthday present, decorated with a matching sprinkle of roses. The paper was tinged yellow at the edges, and crackled as she smoothed it out to write on, but it was hers. The paper and the words were hers to give to Danny.

At first, she had written hesitantly, the pen juddering to a stop every few words, and then she found everything that had been barraged was suddenly free and surging forth in a flood of ink. Released, caught and held for Danny.

Memories, thoughts, the future, the past. The walks along the streets and avenues at night; meals shared in dim restaurants; late rambles in the park between greensilver bowers and sandstone escarpments in the breathing space of the city.

Lindsay breathed out and her pen trailed to a stop as she finished writing Danny's name on the envelope. That last detail she had saved until the hospital. Her gaze meandered around, in a sudden blush of self-consciousness, but there was no one else in sight. She folded the paper in half and then quarters, then slipped it into the envelope and propped it on the bedside table; murmuring a few words to the man who now owned the letter.

"You're going to have to be waking up soon, you hear me, Danny Messer? I'm making a promise here; I'm going to write everything down for you, but I have to warn you, I've not got many sheets of paper or envelopes left, so you're to wake up soon and read them before I run out, okay?"

No answer. Of course not, not really, but she had hoped…

Danny.

So little of him visible; pale glimpses of skin; a heart that could not beat for itself; breath pushed in and out.

With her hand empty, she took hold of his, and warmed it; remembered it teasing a lock of hair out of her eyes; its chivalrous hold of a door as she passed through, and her merry laugh in return; the pull on her fingers as they ran along dark paths in the park, helplessly giggling and breathless. More memories. Passed and gone like all moments, with only their shadows caught on paper.

Beyond her, in the middle of the city, the peals of church bells, sonorous in her silence sounded the hour. Eight hours of the day passed, eight deep brass strikes. Bells clamouring to be heard; tolling, summoning, calling. Lindsay heard them, and prayed for the future memories she and Danny could create, would create, and she dropped her pen into her bag, seeing the time. Time to leave. The day was starting, she ended with his name.

"Remember what I've told you, Danny."

Too tired and sad to say any more to anyone, she hurried out of the hospital.

………………………………...

Peals and chimes, carillon calls, sounds, voices, sounds… Someone heard. Heard something. Someone. Me. _I heard_… I am… I think. I was. Still am, somewhere. Still someone. _I will be_. I think. I'm waiting, listening, waiting. I am…

………………………………...

Another day, another bright sky. Another morning when Adam had woken to the sun brilliantining through his window, slick across his vision and his possessions; blinding him with a heliograph message - get up, get out, get back to work. Blinds were useless; the sun made a mockery of any shields against it.

He had staggered out of bed, blinking and dazed, and had forgotten how he got there when he arrived at work, standing for a moment in the break room, swaying and bemused. Coffee had helped. But not much.

The eighth hour of the morning now - he had counted the strokes of the clock and the cathedral bells, audible from the lab; thought distractedly about the size and intonation, the depth of the sound, the composition of the metal as he listened.

Eight days since the crime scene that had dealt the lab, and the team that made it, its severest blow. They were still a long way from recovering, still reeling in the aftermath. And the setbacks. Black thoughts and a knell of bells. Not for his friends. No.

Adam sat with his eyes glazed over, exhausted from agitated sleep and the work that a reduced team were trying to complete. Pieces of paper lay like a snowstorm over his workstation, and all he could do was swither them round listlessly…

"Got you some breakfast, Adam."

A slim figure with a crown of blonde hair appeared in the doorway; a smile on her face that held the hint of possibilities, and lured him to return it.

"Hey, thanks - thanks, Kendall."

She sauntered into the room, and dropped a muffin into his lap, "Low fat, so you can feel less guilty about your diet."

He grinned, "Thanks."

Folding her arms, she swept her eyes over the papers, "How are we doing with the numbers?"

Adam sighed, and gathered them up into an untidy bunch, "Still too many. _Way_ too many. I was hoping to have gotten the list shorter by now, but it's not happening." It riled him, wasp stings of frustration, that the task he had been so sure and determined of, had been so _certain_ of succeeding in, had not been completed. It hurt and stung. He had _failed_.

Kendall twitched the papers out of his hands and scanned them, "It's shorter than it was… Looks like you've worked hard."

"_We_ have. Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to, you know, say that you hadn't…"

It all tumbled out, and he felt his hand damp with perspiration on the cellophane wrapper.

Regarding him with amusement, not unkindly, Kendall interrupted the flow, "Are you going to eat that muffin, or just squeeze it into crumbs? I know what I'd prefer to do with it…" Her fingers brushed his as she flicked the papers back onto the table. It made his cheeks singe, and he pulled the muffin out of his lap and onto the table faster than a hot coal.

"Sorry." The wrapper crinkled as his fingers fumbled to undo it, so much so, that Kendall with an exaggerated toss of her hair, plucked it from him and tore it open with her teeth. They flashed in a smile at him, "Here you go. Easy when you know how."

"Thanks."

Adam bit a larger than intended chunk out of the muffin, and then almost choked in his haste to swallow it.

Kendall watched him with an interested expression, "Bite too much off, Adam?"

"N - no. I'm good…"

"So… what's next?"

Another mistimed bite, but Kendall waited for him to finish, "I'm, uh, waiting for Hawkes. We're heading out to the company offices, going to test out the boxes and the key, soon as he can get the warrant."

She sighed, "Well, it's nice to be let out of the lab." And ran her finger along the table, "Just spare a thought for me slaving on the inside while you're out in the field, an intrepid lab rat."

Adam bristled just a little and crumpled the cellophane into the trash, "It's not…"

The arrival of the waited-for doctor cut him short. Hawkes waved a paper at the younger man, "We got our warrant, you good to go?"

"Sure, absolutely…"

He spun out of his chair and tossed the last muffin crumbs away.

"Maybe catch you for lunch later?" Kendall asked with a wink in her eye.

His eyes widened, "Uh, yeah, sure. Sure that would great. Later…" She was already breezing out of the room. Ignoring Hawkes's quizzical look as they walked out, Adam followed in his wake, and smiled a little more on the inside.

………………………………...

Bells. She could hear bells. Eight booming notes in minor chords as the sound reverberated in a tremor of echoes. They were close by, somewhere, but she could be anywhere. Anywhere in the city. Maybe not even in the city.

There was too much light in the room, spearing through latticed blinds, stabbing her in the eyes. Through windows that were too high up to reach. She had Alisha. Her baby was safe, that was all that mattered. But with a stab to her heart, Janie knew the situation could change.

How did this happen? How _could_ she have been so careless? All the times as a child she had been told don't take candy from a stranger. This stranger hadn't even offered her candy, but tired and frustrated, she had followed him like a child. Into a cab, and then into somewhere she only had chance to see the front porch of before something had struck her from behind.

She had woken, head pounding with a sick ache, to a small room; Alisha sleeping on a roughly made up cot beside her, and her bags strewn round the room. There was no other sign of life. No sign of the man in the baseball cap, who hadn't even given her his name. And no way out. The door was locked, her cell was gone, she was trapped.

But not helpless. With a careful eye to Alisha, still blissfully asleep, issuing the soft snuffles of the unaware and innocent, Janie looked for what she could use to escape.

………………………………...

Angell left the precinct with a quick step; a busy day ahead, with too few hours in it. A distant clock struck the time as she hurried across the parking lot. Still only eight o'clock. Several hours already behind her; many more in front of her. For the next hour she would be interviewing Zee for the last time, before decisions were made about his future, and his safety. It occupied her mind as she got into the car, and burned her hand on the metal of the seatbelt. August was on its last gasp, but the heat showed no fatigue.

She pulled away after firing up the air conditioning to its maximum, and joined the lengthening lines of traffic. A few minutes later, a car slipped in a few places behind and followed her, unobserved.

………………………………...

Eight in the morning. Another morning inside. Stella, her thoughts troubled, sat looking out of the window, listening to the sounds beyond the wall of glass; the city, its traffic, faint melodies of bells sounding the hour.

Mac had returned hours before; wan-faced and with a violently coloured bruise wrapped round his neck, but alive and returned. They were now in an unforced silence: whilst Mac's eyes drifted over a file, she sat up in bed gazing at the sun and remembering how it felt on her skin; how the air felt; how the breeze felt. Sensations that she missed.

Not for much longer. That she was determined about. As soon as possible, sooner if she could manage, she would be out of the hospital. Eight days wasted when she could have been doing so many things, not least the job she loved, with the people she loved as her family, with everyone, with Mac.

Mac. Still here, at her side, even if she hadn't wanted him to be. But part of her, she could acknowledge, welcomed the friendship, loyalty and care that had showed itself in Mac Taylor spending the greater part of the last eight days in a dreary hospital room. At the side of his partner and his friend. As long as he knew that she would the same for him; she had told him that, just to make sure he did.

Eight days of his life shared with her, intimately, seeing the very worst she could feel; tired, hurting and _angry_.

She knew what had happened to Danny, cajoling it out of Hawkes and Sid yesterday, and the anger burned through her like ice-fire. She let it, drew it in and welcomed it, making her feel alive again. It took away some of the fear that had fastened into her mind; the fear she could feel the bones of; of death that had brushed its fingers across her heart.

She had tried to joke about it, half-heartedly, with Hawkes and Sid; third time unlucky, but her constructed smile had broken apart at the fear and truth in their eyes that were not smiling. Death had come too close. Her eyes closed as she remembered too vividly.

They flew open at the sound of the door opening.

………………………………...

She should have known, should have realised and acted sooner.

_Why didn't I? I let her down. Should have helped her. She was too young…_

Mrs Adams was old. Older than she dared say. Older than most of the people she passed along the streets, weighed down with far fewer decades; to whom she was almost invisible.

Rita's days had ended, eight days ago. But she had not known until yesterday when the young detective with the deep brown eyes and hair to match, had called her, returning her photo and delivering the harshest words in the gentlest voice. Rita was dead, and she had not known. The detective, the one who had taken her letters and listened to her, had asked her, again, so gently, if there was any family the girl had? None. None that Mrs Adams knew of, that she had ever talked about. There were only the letters she sent, to unknown readers; and they were gone, out into the world, all that was left of the girl.

The boyfriend had disappeared too. Which left only her to give Rita her name back. She had held the tears inside until she reached the sanctuary of her apartment, and then they had soaked into Joshua's fur as she hugged him close.

Now they were left without Rita; she and Joshua. They sat together sheltering from the sun-daggers piercing the basement courtyard. Surrounded by the scent of fading sweet peas. Joshua knew, and he sat at her side, a consoling presence. An old lady and her cat. Old, both old.

The bells of the church she had never attended clanged the eighth hour of the morning. Tolling for lost lives.

………………………………...

Flack entered the room, and Stella could not suppress a sigh of relief, or miss the look of concern on his face, "Am I disturbing you?"

"It's fine, I wasn't asleep."

He came further into the room, "Guys outside not disturbing you?"

"Not at all. Glad they're there…" Her smile became a frown, "You look beat, Flack. When was the last time you had a decent meal? Not counting a handful of candy bars from out a vending machine."

A guilty look crossed Flack's face as he pushed an empty wrapper out of sight into his pocket, and Stella looked accusingly at him, "I saw that. I don't miss anything. You and Mac are as bad as each other."

Mac merely raised his eyebrows and shrugged at the detective, putting his file aside as he did so, "It's safer not to argue, Don."

It sparked a grin, "Glad you realise that, Mac." Then her face clouded, "I'm sorry this has made so much more work for everyone…"

Flack's retaliation was almost aggressive, "I'm not listening to any apologies from you. I got plenty of my own I need to make…"

"No you don't." She cut him off; there was too much hurt in his eyes, things hidden. And something he was reluctant to ask her, "Come on, Don. Whatever you've come here to ask me, ask it. Questions aren't going to hurt me." Questions had answers. She needed answers.

In answer, Flack produced an envelope and laid it on the bed. He took a deep breath and glanced at Mac, who was listening intently, "These are from the hospital security cameras, images of the two guys who took a shot at me and Lindsay three days ago…"

She had already figured it out, and taken hold of the envelope, "You want me to look at them. See if I recognise either of them."

"You don't have to…" The words came simultaneously from both Mac and Flack, and it brought a hint of amusement despite the sudden dread that had slid its way into her. At what she might see once the envelope was open.

"Don't want to argue with you. I told you, I need to do something useful…"

The black and white photographs were in her hands. Glossy paper, but streaked and matted images. Two faces. One in shadow beneath a baseball cap. But the other…

Sitting in the car at the scene. A message on her phone. Reading it, reaching to turn the key in the ignition. Looking for Danny. Where was he? Sun through the windscreen. And then so fast, too fast… Seconds of a face and then a shot and then nothing. But the seconds had been long enough. She remembered the face, and recognised it now; caught on paper. Caught in her mind. Caught forever.

**Not much action, but I hope this chapter was okay. Needed to catch hold of a few threads. Please let me know what you thought, whether good or bad, any suggestions welcome! Thank you, Lily x**


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 22: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, always replied to if logged. And thanks for sticking with the story! Never realised it would get this long…**

**Thanks to _Blue Shadowdancer _for information on 'All Access', to _Shadow Fox _and_ Juliette _for your reviews, and to _Chrysalis Escapist _for extra thoughts.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 22

_2nd August_

…_I finally feel that I'm starting to belong here, you know? I've been in the city a few months and it's taken that long to get used to the streets and the noise, and the people. That's what bothered me most at first I think, so many people. You could fit the entire population back home inside just one of the midtown office blocks. I suppose it should make me feel small and insignificant, but it just makes me feel I have to make myself noticed…_

………………………………...

He saw it in her hands; shaking suddenly, the photographs in them quivering. He saw it in her face; falling into rare fear, translucent pallor creeping back under her skin. He saw it in her body; tensing, shoulders suddenly rigid and her breathing quickening and catching.

There was no need to ask; Flack knew without words, and knew that Mac did too, that Stella recognised someone in the images taken from the hospital security cameras. Someone who had escaped from his grasp. Someone who had almost taken her and Danny from them.

He spoke softly, sadly, "Which one, Stell?"

The pictures creased and distorted as her grip tightened, "The one - one without the cap, in the white coat. He was the one at the scene…" She stopped and gulped in another breath, "I didn't see him at first, they must have gotten behind me…"

"Neither did we." Flack heard the unspoken in Mac's voice; recognising it bitterly. If only he had seen. But too late. Useless recriminations.

Stella continued, not letting go of the photographs, using them, he realised, to steady her hands "I was looking at my phone, next thing I know, someone had their hand on the back of my head, I hit the steering wheel…"

"Danny and I heard you shouting." Mac supplied, his eyes not leaving Stella; something in them that Flack read as a reflection of his own feelings; impotent anger at what had happened.

Stella nodded, "I heard you both, I think, something anyhow, all I was thinking was stopping them taking the evidence. Then I hit him…" Her fingernail traced the image, and she turned it to both men, "You can probably make it out, got a punch off at least, to his jaw. Then he got one back…" Almost absently, she brushed the fading mark on her forehead.

Remembering, Flack remained marble-still, and his words seemed to come from inside statue confines, rattling stones, "I wondered, hell, I _wondered_ how he'd gotten that bruise on his jaw. Stell, I - I don't know what to say, if I'd known, had any idea. No, that's wrong, I shoulda' known, should've challenged him. _Fuck_. He was under my nose, _and I let him go_…"

"How could you have known, Don?"

But he shook away her offer of redemption, "I should've arrested him when I had the chance." It seared that he had been so close to the man, if he could even call someone a man who had nearly killed his friends, and endangered so many more. An image of Lindsay; sitting on the floor, clutching her arm; seconds and inches, that was all it would have taken; miniscule variations, life-changing and ending differences.

The man had been inches away from him, seconds apart. He had let them increase out of reach.

It was destroying Flack; worming through him leaving a venomous excavation in his heart. Only as soon as this man was caught could he begin to heal. Only when his friends were healed.

He couldn't look at either Mac or Stella, "The final line is I screwed up. But I'll get him, and the other guy, whoever he is, whatever his involvement. Your ID's all we needed, Stell. We had a match on the bullets already; same gun, and now we know, same shooter."

Flack lifted his eyes and turned to Stella with a sigh, his mind back to the last time he had been forced to interview her as a victim; different time, different place, same revulsion at what she had undergone, "I gotta ask if there's anything more you remember, anything else you can tell us from the scene?"

A look of helplessness marred Stella's expression, and the tension holding her up left her as her shoulders slumped and one of the photographs fluttered out of her fingers, "The other guy he was with… didn't see his face, only another voice shouting. Things got kind of blurry, dizzy… I remember trying to reach for my piece, that was when…" Her words faltered.

Flack with a bitumen-black cauldron curse of loathing and disgust, wished for the man in front of him right now, for what he had done to Danny and Stella.

At Stella's side, he saw Mac's fists close and then release again. Quashing violence in response to it, as he laid his open hand on Stella's back. Gentle touch, but lead in his voice, "Danny and I heard the shot, we were running..."

"It's okay, Mac…" She took another deep breath, her voice a little hoarser, but strong as she continued, "After that, not much more, until what you know I guess. Just - just flashes of things; voices, sounds, feeling that it was hot, the sun through the windscreen I think... Then - then the next thing I remember is the fire, trying to open my eyes, and trying to get out… trying… then someone…"

Flack watched warily seeing her eyes still darkly bright with tears she would not want to fall.

Mac's hand, moved to her shoulder, fingers splayed round it protectively, "Stella, if you want to stop…"

"_No,_ I told you, I'm okay. Honestly, this - this helps, and if it can do any good. I know I wasn't the only one hurt…"

Flack did not want her to ask about Danny, because he knew he would not be able to close out the truth of how ill he was from her, so he reached convulsively for the scattered photographs and gathered them into a neat rectangle, "You told us more than enough, Stell. Wasn't even thinking you'd remember as much as you have done. I promise I'll get him, he's not slipping away from me again. We've got his details out there, you know the drill. I'll find him."

He held out his hand for the black and white image Stella still held, and she relinquished it, withdrawing her hand quickly. Not before Flack saw the network of fresh cuts across her palm, and, still visible even after more than two years, another reminder; faint white scars on her fingertips. Never erased.

Stella laced her fingers together across her stomach, and then unknotted them, looking up at Flack, "Don't take it all on yourself. And stop beating yourself up."

"When I catch him."

"You're not working on your own, Don." Mac's voice held a warning which Flack chose to put away for now; he knew what he had to do, and he doubted Mac was going to be acting any differently. He knew what he was doing, knew protocol and how to keep himself safe. He also knew he was a damn good detective. He found people. And when he found who he was looking for, then he could consider beginning to forgive himself. Until then, Don Flack was steeped in a purgatory of his own creation.

"I got to go make some calls." He forced the photographs back into the envelope, tearing the edges.

Stella nodded, not ceasing to twine and untwine her fingers compulsively, "Sure."

Mac stood, "Call me when you need me out there, Don, and keep me informed."

"As always." He was over the threshold when Stella's voice stopped him.

"Keep _us_ informed." Her eyes were emerald sharp even in a still too-pale face.

"I will." He nodded and strode away.

………………………………...

It looked like an orderly and constrained explosion of powder grey steel and plastic. Stacks and heaps and wobbling columns of compact boxes.

They were surrounded.

Hawkes paused for a moment, trying ineffectually to pull the set-as-concrete stiffness out of his spine. He and Adam had been in the dingy basement of the Post Office Box Company for nearly three hours without even the offer of water. Criminals were served better. The generous side of Hawkes put this down to forgetfulness and the overwhelming call of business; but the realistic side blamed the sullen desk clerk who had heaved tempestuous sighs when they arrived and produced their warrant. After leading them down and down into the hottest and lowest chasms of the building, she had left them to the mountain ranges of boxes, and had not returned since.

More than two hours into the task, and Adam had been issued with orders for bottled water and a few bills. He returned magnificently with water, coffee and cookies, which he presented to Hawkes with a flourish and a grin.

"Low fat _and_ sugar free, therefore guilt free. Tuck in, doc."

Hawkes raised an eyebrow, "You still dieting? Can't see you got any need to."

Adam shrugged and slurped at his coffee, "Yeah, well, figured I need to maybe lose a pound or two. Take care of my figure a little more, y'know."

"Uh huh, I see." And he did, considering the brief exchange between Adam and Kendall he had overheard the end of before they left.

He decided to interfere a little, whilst remaining sensitive to Adam's sensibilities, "I don't think anyone else thinks you need to lose any, people like you for who you are…"

The rising crimson stain on Adam's cheeks checked him, "I hear you, doc, but I'm sticking to the low fat."

"You got it."

They finished their refreshments, and then resumed the brain brutalisingly boring task. An endless, unvarying motion: insert key, turn, fail to open, try again.  
No other options, over and over. So many times Hawkes had lost count.

"Two hundred thirteen down…"

"Say what?"

"Boxes. Not bottles of beer, though if you want me to, I could…

"I don't."

"No worries."

"You keeping count?" Hawkes stopped and regarded the younger man with a mixture of amusement and admiration; he had lost count after the first ten.

Adam shrugged, "Nothing else to do."

"How many to go?"

"Five hundred eighty two. Give or take."

"Right."

They continued, and Hawkes heard Adam muttering the numbers under his breath, it brought a small grin to his face.

At box number three hundred and one, they paused again to finish their coffee and a second cookie.

Adam, munching his with gusto, sat on the floor, his back against one of the mounds of boxes. The key twirled in his fingers, back and forth, his eyes following it. Hawkes was mesmerised, until he shook himself and was about to speak when Adam cleared his throat.

"Uh, Hawkes, y'know Sid found the key in the stomach of one of the John Does?"

"What about it?"

Round and through, the key still wove through his fingers. Adam gulped and looked uncomfortable, "He, uh, ever tell you about other, uh, _things_ he's taken out of bodies?"

Hawkes's eyebrows rose into his hair, "Sid tell you _that_ story? How'd he get hold of you to do that?"

The lab technician squirmed, and the last quarter of his cookie died a soggy death in his coffee, "Had to take something down to the morgue two days ago. No one else was down there, he, uh, got to talking about, stuff, y'know…"

Remembering the moment Sid's anecdote had caught up with him, after he thought he had skilfully avoided it, Hawkes grimaced in sympathy, "He tell you the _whole_ story?"

A face suddenly the colour of uncooked dough told him before Adam answered, "Yeah. Yeah, he did. Couldn't leave, or think of an excuse fast enough."

Hawkes gave a low whistle, "Man. You get all the details?"

"_Oh_ yeah."

He could only shake his head, "That bad huh? Tough call."

Adam nodded and shuddered, "Yeah... Guess we'd better carry on."

"Guess so."

Torturously slowly, the numbers on either side of the scale of tried and untried shifted in their favour.

Six hundred and two down, one hundred and ninety three to go.

The water level in their bottles dropped rapidly.

They took it in turns to be key turner and box mover. Hawkes was back on key duty; numb to the rhythm and robotic now; push in, turn, fail; push in, turn, fail; push in, turn… turn some more, open.

He froze. Adam was immediately alert, craning over his shoulder, "We got it?"

Hawkes licked dry lips, "I think we found our box, Adam."

………………………………...

"So, you find anything out from all those boxes the old lady had stashed away? Must be something special for the kid to have made two attempts to grab 'em."

Lindsay shook her head at Detective Markham's question, feeling a twinge of guilt that she had not been able to devote enough time to that task, "Nothing yet, but I've not looked too closely, still working my way through them. I'm sorry detective, but it's not my highest priority right now, much as I'd like it to be."

Markham gave her a look of sympathy, "Sure, I hear you."

Everyone knew. The whole of the NYPD knew what had happened, and it had canon-balled round every department; personal connections between all the detectives involved being many and far reaching.

Lindsay smiled briefly at him, "Thanks. Uh, how how's your young man?"

The question was asked before she could stop herself. It made Markham's pale features blush rose and cream, and he swivelled his tie before answering, "He's, y'know, he's good. We're doing good. Got dinner planned tonight."

She smiled again, "That's nice to know. Hope it goes well." She recalled another's words, "Take a chance."

There was curiosity in his gaze, "Yeah, yeah we're taking it. Thanks."

A pause dropped between them, until Markham picked up the conversation, "What about the kid? Reckon we take him seriously, all he's saying about his sister and the no contact?"

Their proven suspect for the burglary, was proving to be uncooperative: all they had got from him were several names, all and none of them belonging to himself. They had however been able to uncover from the layers of identity the young man had clothed himself in, that he was properly Christopher Mendes; known also to associates as Troy Dyer. They had soon disrobed him of that alias.

Held and charged for the aggravated burglary, he had been through another round of questions earlier with Lindsay as observer, and, towards the end of the interview, had suddenly exposed a little more of himself with an outburst of anxiety for the whereabouts of his sister.

Lindsay hesitated, and another hesitation eight days ago that had left a burn scar in her mind, decided her. It would be a few minutes work to check. Despite what Sid had said to her, she knew a few minutes could make a difference, to a life saved or lost.

"I think we should check it out. If he's really worried, and he seems sincere, then there might be something. Won't do any harm, and might even do some good if we can get a hold of her. She might give us some insight into little brother."

Markham nodded, "You got it. I'll get her cell number off of him, get the kid talking more maybe?"

"Let's hope so."

They parted: Markham to gather any more information he could from their perpetrator; Lindsay to continue, for a brief hour, the task of looking through the boxes of letters the old lady had entrusted to her.

As she walked back to the lab, the movement of her feet began to join to a sway of thought in her mind: boxes of letters; Rita was the old lady's neighbour; Rita wrote letters…

Things began to join up; letters into words, words into sentences; sentences into ideas and theories. Spider lines of writing rustled across paper connected to her thoughts. It was what she was good at: connecting; seeing the hidden behind the obvious; reading between the lines… Lindsay read and saw and theorised_._

………………………………...

A few days had made a greater difference. Angell had not seen Zee since taking his last statement three days ago, but in that time he had changed again. A sustained diet of good food, clean clothes and sanitary living conditions had rounded his cheeks and filled out his frame until almost a different man stood waiting for her in the doorway of the safe house.

"How you doing, Zee?" She greeted him, and shook his outstretched hand.

"Yeah, good. I'm good. So what you here for this time, detective? This the last time?"

He had broached the subject she had been agonising over the whole car ride from the precinct. Honesty won out, "It's looking like it. How do you feel about that?"

Zee shoved his hands in his pockets, "Guessed it would be. I been here a while, so I figured it was time to be out of here. Time to be getting back home."

"Do you want to leave here? Thought you liked it, all the food and clothes and everything else?"

"Yeah, it's good. Nice food and clothes, best I reckon I've ever had. But it ain't me. This ain't home here."

"So where is?" Angell was having to squint at him, as a corona of light caught round his hair and blazed it into gold. She sat down on one of the couple of plastic chairs by the door, after carefully checking its pitted surface.

Zee plumped down beside her, "Where you picked me up from, where you all came to, where I looked after Stella." He shuffled his feet, took his hands out of his pockets, and then put them back, "How's she doing? She okay?"

"She's getting better."

"She still in the hospital?"

Angell replaced her sunglasses as she stared out over the parking lot. The rows of cars shone like scarab beetles in the sun, bright facets of colour as the sun bounced off them. The final day of August; Autumn's brittle white light in the sky.

"Yeah, she's going to be there a little while longer. Did you want to see her maybe?" She knew, via Flack, that Stella wanted at some point to meet the man who had saved her life.

Zee frowned, "Not in the hospital. No way, not there. Not my place, hospitals, dangerous places, people die in 'em. She can see me at my place, when she gets out of there, if she wants to."

She could, fairly confidently, answer for Stella, knowing what she knew of her, "I'm sure she will, Zee…"

Her eyes scanned the parking lot again. Nothing was out of place. And yet… Something, some small movement, something out of conscious thought made her stand, and tug a startled Zee up with her, "You know, I think we'd be better off indoors. Getting hot out here, isn't it?"

She didn't give him time to voice any protest, pushing him instead back through the doors behind her. Slamming them shut, throwing a bolt over, Angell hustled Zee along the corridor, already speaking urgently into her phone to a trusted answering voice, "Don? Listen, I'm with Zee at the safe house. Get yourself down here, and bring some back up as discreetly as possible. I think we may have unwanted company. Someone we've been looking for."

**I hope you liked this chapter. Please review and let me know! All thoughts very welcome, thanks, Lily x**


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 23: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. **

**Thanks to _Shadow Fox _and_ Fat Kat _for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper review reply.**

**Many thanks to _Marialisa_ for help with plot points. Thanks to _Blue Shadowdancer _and _iluvCSI4ever_ for reading, and _Shining Zephyr _for her tribute story 'Lost Love' - recommended read!**

Lost Letters: Chapter 23

_1st August_

… _August already, and it doesn't seem long since we were celebrating new year together, right before I left for here. Seven months of the year gone. I can't help looking back over them, kind of assessing what I've done, where I've been. And I don't know what to make of myself and what I've done, whether I can justify it all. I guess some people could make a harsh judgement on me, but I didn't have much of a choice, did I?…_

………………………………...

Angell stuffed her phone back in her pocket, and manoeuvred Zee behind her, meeting resistance as she did so in the form of a volley of questions.

"What we doing, detective? We came back inside pretty quick there. You get spooked by something? Who you just call then? You got a problem?"

Zee was irrepressible, but unfazed as Angell pushed him forward down the hallway, "Something frighten you?"

She was not afraid. Jessica Angell did not give time or space to fear, except when it was necessary, and when she needed a catalyst of adrenaline: in pursuit of a suspect; or at the moment of entering a room, not knowing who or what was behind the door; then she used a heart beat of fear to clarify and cut a scalpel sharpness to her reactions. Using the vibration of her nerve endings as the signal of danger.

There was danger now; a tremor in the air and a crawling of anticipation under her scalp and skin. She had caught only a glimpse of the man sitting in a battered red Chevrolet in the parking lot, but she had recognised and known instantly who it was - one of the men who had been in the hospital, who had shot at Flack and Lindsay Monroe. After the rapid conversation with Flack, she now also knew he was their prime suspect for all the crimes visited upon the team and the other victims. And she had a sudden intuition that he knew who she was. Any threat to herself she could handle; but she had an innocent civilian with her, and possibly others inside the building. A threat from one man. One very dangerous man.

"Where's everyone else, Zee?" Her hand closed around her holster, not stopping their harried progress, "Who else is here apart from us?"

Zee stopped dead. Angell bit back a sigh of exasperation, and poked him forward, "You're going to have to walk and talk… Where are the rest of the staff and residents?"

"Out. Gone out for the day, taken themselves off to the park."

"You sure about that? All of them?"

They turned into another passageway off the main hallway, rapid footsteps.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. I stayed to meet you. You don't trust me?"

He stopped again, a look of hurt across his face as he huffed.

"I trust you, I just need to be sure, okay?"

"Okay. Yeah, they're out, no one here but us."

"Good."

They kept on down the passage, feet tip-tapping on the tiles. No other sounds. No sounds of pursuit. Yet.

It was difficult for Zee to walk in a straight line, he kept turning and whirling round to Angell, feet in a forwards and backwards dance as they moved, "What's up with this? Why'd you push me inside so fast?" He stopped again and Angell bumped up against his shoulder, her face colliding painfully with it, "You see someone out there?"

"Got it in one." Rubbing at her cheek, she got him moving, "Someone you don't want to meet."

They continued.

It was a large building, deceptively so: a small front from the outside; four storeys high; six broad sash windows across; but it went back and back, and the corridor they were now on stretched ahead of them. Slate-grey floor tiles underfoot, plastic surface buffed to a sheen, and Angell felt her shoes in danger of slipping. Zee's sneakers squeaked in his jerky rhythm onwards. The air was bristling with heat; prickling and jabbing at her, even with the light blouse and pants she wore. The air conditioning, under city budget controls, was obviously at a minimum, and she wriggled her back as perspiration trickled between her shoulder blades.

They turned a corner, down another stretch of corridor. Even at the risk of offending him, Angell was determined to make sure Zee was not mistaken; she could not risk any more civilians caught up in what she knew could become a lethal situation. After what the man she had seen in the car park had done, she was well aware of the precarious situation they were in. She had the advantage of preparation, and back-up on the way, but also a hunch that this was a desperate attempt. He had been lured out into the open. A desperate man meant desperate actions. Her hand flipped open her holster and gripped the top of her weapon as she checked each room they passed.

Still no sound. No sound of the man she had seen, and no sound yet of her back-up.

"Keep moving, Zee."

Hand to his back, giving no chance to argue, she nudged him on and he picked up his pace. Past pale green washed walls, un-enlivened every few feet by faded and wrinkled posters; cheap reproductions of art works. Even in the urgency of the situation, Angell couldn't stop herself seeing, noticing. They turned another corner, and reached a dead end. Looking out onto a brick wall, a low window of reinforced glass was in front of them. It brought them to an abrupt halt, as the sound of the front door rattling became audible, followed by a splintering shatter of glass and wood banging against wood.

………………………………...

He had been watching for her, the dark haired detective, since the first silver cracks had appeared in the grey night city sky; sitting outside the police precinct, watching and waiting for any of the faces he wanted. Hers was the first that had emerged, and he had taken hold of the memory from the brief glimpse eight days ago; peeling the scab away from his mind, revealing the scraped raw wound of humiliation she had been a part of causing him. She and the others; the other lives he had failed to remove from his life.

It was his own mission now, devoid of any ruling and control, broken away alone for a last chance, wanting his own deaths, for his own reasons. No one else's rules. The rules didn't matter any more now; what mattered now was the day, the time, the hour of his choosing. Time was up for them, maybe for him, nothing mattered now any more. Only the inevitable.

Today was a good day for dying.

There was something of finality in the air; the last day of August, a final chance to finish some of what he had started. So he had sat and waited, and watched as she left the building and drove away. And he had driven close behind, pulling up minutes later in a non-descript parking lot opposite a brownstone.

The trapped heat of the fake leather upholstery, stale smelling, scorched through the denim he wore. The detective sat on the porch with a stranger; he watched, unfastened his seatbelt and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel, staring dead ahead through the fly-blown windscreen. Even between the dust smears, he saw everything. The person with her did not matter; he had a full clip of bullets with him; one more would not count. He watched as she talked to the man and a fat, blue-backed fly wandered across the dashboard. The woman talked on, gazed over the parking lot, did not see him. The fly rubbed its back legs and lifted a few centimetres in flight, landing above the steering wheel.

The detective, sweeping long hair over her shoulder, looked out again, and he felt her eyes pass over him this time. And he knew. She had seen him. Heat and flies droned in his ear, the skin on his hands stretched as he strangled the steering wheel. Then she disappeared, suddenly, out of sight, into the building.

He moved, without thinking; his fist slammed down and a dying mass of pulverized fly oozed underneath the side of his hand.

He flung the car door open, kicked it shut and stood. No one else around, no other cops, no other people. The day, waiting in the first musky hint of summer's end, was his alone.

Chips of gravel underfoot, he strode across the lot, reaching for his piece and hefting it in his hand. Solid touch, real, something he could trust. He was ready, determined. This time he would not hesitate. He would not fail.

Leaping up the steps to the porch, he brought the butt of his gun cracking into the corner of the glass. It shattered in seconds and he grasped and undid the bolt. Rich stepped through into the house.

………………………………...

"What now, Doc?"

Caught in the breath of the moment, Adam, on hands and knees in the confined space of the basement, looked at Hawkes, sharing the excitement of success, "You think we should open it here?"

Hawkes, clearly reluctantly, shook his head and withdrew the key, "No, we'll take it back to the lab, see if we can get any prints off of it. Doubt we'll find much success there though, seeing as all these have probably been handled by whoever brought them down here, but it's worth a try, see if anyone's tampered with it…"

"Whatever's inside, I gotta tell you, doc, the anticipation's killing me here."

Hawkes grinned, "Well hold up for a little longer, until we get back to the lab."

They unbent themselves slowly, and eased the box into a large evidence bag, before gathering the vestiges of their refreshments, both conscientious of not leaving a mess.

"Let's go." Hawkes led the way, Adam picking up the last coffee cup on their way out.

………………………………...

After Flack's departure, nothing more was said for a moment. Stella stared straight ahead; Mac waited for her to speak. Her last words to Flack hung in the air between them, until she turned to him again.

"I know we've been here before, Mac, after Frankie, but this time, it's not just about me, I wasn't the only one attacked. Don't make me have to be just a victim again, I need to be a CSI as well in this. Let me do what I can to help, please don't make me any more of a victim than I already am."

Her eyes confronted him; a confrontation Mac knew he could not win, and despite his training and cold head of protocol, did not want to win. The effect the picture of the man who had attacked her had just had on Stella, made him realise that there was more healing that needed to happen than simply a wound in the flesh. But it was always so. The deepest wound he had suffered, cut into his bones and soul, unhealed, was the one that had left no physical mark on him.

Mac laid his hand on the bed, just a fingertip away from her. Her hands were clasped round each other, but not still, "Stella, you are not just a victim. You know that. No one ever is, it's the person behind the victim. That's who matters, who we care about."

Her head was bowed, then she raised her eyes to Mac, anger sparking in them, "He made me _feel_ like a victim. Seeing his face again, remembering. Damn Mac, I was afraid…"

"I'd have been more concerned if you hadn't have been. Stella, you're one of the bravest people I know, and part of that bravery is knowing when to be afraid, not letting it break you, and it hasn't."

His eyes searched her face, trying to find some way, some words to help begin the internal healing, if he could. If she could. As she had done for him.

"Damn right." Stella leaned back, and pushed her hair away from her face. The spark became a blaze as she looked at Mac, "I can get through this. Danny can get through this…"

Her words inflamed and revived some of the him that had been lying cold and dormant, "_We_ can."

Two hands: one rougher-skinned, older, the other smaller, with no less strength; hands that were no strangers, held to each others friendship, loyalty and care.

………………………………...

TJ knew where Rich had gone, and he did not stop him, preferring now to let him flounder in his own alchemical brew of murder and violence. Hands clean, out of sight, out of reach, always his mantra.

But all around him, all those he had set up in serried ranks in front of him were beginning to fall, and it was with a mind seething and broiling with impatience that he sat in his apartment and contemplated the scissures in his defence system. The failures of those around him were becoming harder to repair.

Cold coffee in his hands, its aroma past bitter, TJ considered the day, and the people that moved around him. Rich was out of his hands, for now, Christopher also; but because of his failure, he had his sister and his niece. What he was going to do with them, was still uncertain.

Time to decide. The last inch of coffee swirled and gurgled away down the sink, followed by the sound of porcelain crashing onto steel in a shower of shards.

A door slammed shut, a sound lost amongst the hottest, heaviest hours of the day. A man in a baseball cap merged into the swaying sidewalk crowds; polished shoes hitting the slabs as he went; hands curled into fists at his side.

………………………………...

Almost there. So close, so close. Janie could see the daylight through the louvre blinds; feel the organza warmth of filtered sun across her face. She blinked and wobbled on her perch of two stools, a table and a rocking chair.

Several feet below, Alisha turned, whimpering in her sleep and Janie held her breath, teetering on the edge of the top stool. The man who had put them both here, whoever he was, could be anywhere: miles away; a street away; a room away. No way to tell. Her ears strained for any sound. Nothing so far. She was almost, almost there. Just one stretch away…

………………………………...

The only way to turn was back, back the way they came. Angell spun on her heel and yanked Zee's arm, eliciting an affronted exclamation. But there was no time for apologies.

"Move it!"

She pulled him along, back through the yards of corridor, trying to ignore the sounds of breaking glass as their intruder smashed his way in.

"What…?"

"Zee, you got to trust me here, okay? Do exactly as I tell you, and we'll be okay, you got that?"

Momentarily, he stopped and Angell put as much conviction into her voice as she could muster, "Trust me. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Okay… I trust you." He got out breathlessly as she pulled him along again.

"Good. Thanks. Now come on!"

Not stopping; her heels clattering, his sneakers pattering behind. Stairs at the end of the corridor. She made a grab for the banister and hauled them both up as not far enough away, the door crashed open and someone entered the building.

………………………………...

Flack jumped another red light and heard with grim satisfaction the babel of car horns as he hurtled along the streets, a fleet of patrol cars before and aft. Myriads of thoughts and memories jostling in his mind as he drove; mind on the road; mind on the past. He saw Danny, white and still, not joining him for the latest game; he saw Stella and the strength in her pushed almost beyond what he thought was limitless; he saw Lindsay and the bullet that had shed her blood. He did not want to see any more damage done. The man responsible was almost in sight; another chance. No hesitation this time. He would not fail.

………………………………...

They placed the box on the table with some ceremony and began the painstaking work of dusting for prints. A few partials, two usable whole prints which Hawkes put aside for the moment. Both he and Adam knew what was their priority; not least to satisfy the curiosity that was causing Adam's limbs to twitch as he hung onto the edge of the table, watching the other man, waiting.

"Almost done?"

"Yeah, we'll get these prints into AFIS soon as."

Hawkes took a deep breath, gloved hands gripping the key tightly, and then he paused, a small grin playing over his face, "You want to do the honours?"

Adam's grin lit his face, "Sure I'm not depriving you, doc?"

"Go right ahead."

He took the key from Hawkes, turned the key and opened the box; revealing a bulky envelope, a photograph and a hundred dollar bill.

………………………………...

Mr and Mrs Messer sat, still sitting, absorbed after eight days, nearly nine, into the routine of a life changed. A life of hospital wards, the same routes along the corridors to the restrooms, the dining rooms and the rarely used exit. Home, with its personal and individual atmosphere, unnoticed when they were always there in their cheerful bickering and comfortable conversations and silences, was becoming a memory.

When she last walked into her home two days ago, Mrs Messer felt the air inside foreign; and had noticed for the first time the faint smell of herbs that lingered in the kitchen, and the scent of lavender polish, cool in the hallway when she forced open the front door against the heap of mail that had gathered.

Without a second glance, she had added it to the stack on the stairs, picked up what she needed and gone straight back to the hospital. She had not left since.

Her husband, heaving a sigh, pulled himself up from his chair suddenly, dropping a hand onto his wife's shoulder and asked, "You want some water?"

"Sure." She didn't really, the taste of hospital water was sour in her mouth, it set her teeth on edge. But it passed the time.

When her husband returned, she took the cup and swallowed a freezing mouthful, eyes never leaving Danny. His hand was in hers. In adulthood not so easily grasped, her fingers did not quite reach round, but she held on…

"Danny?"

The cup bounced and ping-ponged across the floor, water splashing everywhere, "Danny? Danny! Baby, I'm here, I'm here…"

She flailed wildly for her husband's arm, "He moved! His fingers moved!"

Three hands, blood and family bound, held on.

………………………………...

Rich stepped into the hallway, kicked the glass out of his way and listened. He heard his own breathing. He heard the squeal of glass crushed between the soles of his shoes and the tiles. He heard footsteps on the stairs above him. A smile curled across his lips, he licked his teeth; a trick of light falling across him cast a shade and the shadow of a wolf along the floor as he walked on.

………………………………...

She heard her breath heaving and her pulse piston-pumping. She heard the footsteps below.

"Up! Keep going, come on!"

Zee stumbled along and up the next flight. Angell spared a rapid glance over her shoulder, and darted up behind him.

From outside, she heard the welcome sound of sirens howling and tyres bumping and screeching across the parking lot. She also heard the footsteps coming up the stairs. Thrusting Zee sideways through an open door, she pulled her gun out and hid herself. And waited.

**Sorry this is a little late. I hope you liked it, please review and let me know what you think, it really helps me write! Thanks, Lily x**


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 24: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. **

**Thank you to _Fat Kat_, _Shadow Fox _and _Juliette _for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper review reply. Thank you to _iluvCSI4ever, Lost in New York_ and _chrysalis escapist _for discussions, and to _Blue Shadowdancer _and _sarramaks_ for reading.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 24

_31st July_

… _The end of another month; not so long ago, that meant a pay check, nice and regular. I miss them. It's good in a way I guess being my own boss as it were, trouble is though of course, it means I have to write my own pay checks. Still, a new month tomorrow, maybe a new start. I'm wondering already what August is going to bring for Joe and I…_

………………………………...

Rich listened to the rasp of breath through dry lips. They were above. He was below. He waited, poised, ligaments and muscles strained, and then he sprang up the stairs; gun held out and teeth bared. Sunlight threw him a lupine shadow; and a little splash of red fell into its depths.

………………………………...

Angell waited, weapon cocked, heart too loud. Her companion stood hushed behind her. Sun through the window lit her back; throwing her into relief and bouncing a gleam off a silvered sheet of glass against the wall. It caught her eye. Finger to her lips, she turned to Zee; he nodded, wrapping his arms around himself, disappearing further into the dust motes. Footsteps coming up the stairs, louder, closer, ready to pounce. Zee, she could see in a half-turn, was terrified, fear dripping from him; eyes huge with whites glistening. Their pursuer, her pursued, had reached the landing below them; she heard feet prowling. Her hand tightened round her weapon. Car doors opened outside. Voices. Amongst them, she recognised Flack's. Feet began to ascend the stairs.

………………………………...

Flack ushered the team through the door; vests on, weapons ready; efficient and moving in tessellation across crushed shards of glass. Rapid glances, signals, gestures to the floor: a blood-red trail leading to their prey. They moved swift and silent onwards.

………………………………...

Rich bled unnoticed from a fragment of glass embedded in his hand. To anything other than the euphoric blood-lust that drove him on, the banging of want, the desire to hurt and fight back, he was insensate. At this moment, he was only and all a killer. Death had eluded him in past days, twisted away, drawn him along, laughing out of reach. Until now. A death's head, raw skull and bloody bones, grinned from the shadows. He reached the landing and breathed slaughter in the air.

………………………………...

The steps outside slowed. He was outside, on their landing and Angell felt her chest tighten. Zee's breathing was too loud; hers too. She backed up, choosing her position carefully, and without her eyes leaving the door, made sure Zee was invisible behind her. His hand clutched the back of her blouse as the footsteps approached and stopped outside the door. A real and an unreal hand lifted a weapon to eye level.

………………………………...

Up the stairs, Flack at the head, the flock of officers swooped in formation. Blood sang in his ears; they were close, converging. Close enough? Time winged past. His feet flew to the landing, and he saw a door at the end of the corridor open. An open door. A shadow on the threshold. Flack lifted his weapon and aimed.

……………………………….

Rich fired and the image of her face in front of him as he stepped inside, exploded, shivered and crashed into a million sparkling diamonds.

………………………………...

Angell moved in a light-speed second after her doppelganger was destroyed.

"Never heard of doing it with mirrors?" She hissed and pressed her gun to the back of the suspect's neck, caught his arm behind his back.

A growl and a loose-limbed convulsion hit her in the stomach. The man jerked out of her grasp and she stumbled, her gun skittering across the floor.

"You! You're the one who ran away! I remember you!"

Zee launched himself from the corner, the mask of fear fallen, and threw himself on to the man, who, unprepared, fell under his weight.

As running feet sounded along the corridor, Angell dived for her lost weapon. The man flipped Zee and pinned him to the ground with an elbow in his chest and a gun jammed into his face. She kicked out and a bullet fired.

………………………………...

Flack tumbled into the room as the echoes of the shot reverberated. The horror-chilled shout on his lips froze at the sight inside: Angell kneeling on top of a man; his arms locked behind him in her white-knuckle hold; a gun lying a yard from him, next to a bullet hole torn into the floor. An officer immediately ran over and kicked it further out of reach. More guns crowned the suspect's head.

In the centre of the room, sitting with his arms wrapped round his knees, eyes wild, sat the man he recognised as Stella's rescuer. He breathed again. Angell was alive. Everyone was alive.

"You okay?" He dropped a hand on her shoulder.

Flack saw the yellow bruise on the side of the man's jaw turned towards him. They had him. At last. The man responsible for so much suffering to his friends. It left him loathing and hollow in victory though; the damage done would not be undone even by this.

"Yeah. _Great_. Got the bastard." Angell's knee pressed harder into their suspect's back, provoking a muffled growl. "_Shut up!_" She pulled his arms more tightly and pushed her hand down onto the back of his head so his face was forced against the floor, "You're disarmed and surrounded by armed officers, don't even _think_ of trying anything!"

"He all right?" Flack jerked his thumb at the other man, who remained rock-still amongst the turmoil washing round him.

"Zee? You okay?" Angell turned a concerned face to him.

The name was familiar; Flack knew someone had given it to him, somewhere in the last eight days.

Zee returned a dazed stare, "Yeah, I'm good. Did he hurt you detective? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine."

They pulled the suspect up and hauled him towards the door.

Eyes flicking back to life at the movement, Zee bounded to his feet "He's the one who ran away from the car! He hurt Stella, didn't he? That's why he tried to shoot us too…"

Flack guessed a millisecond in advance what he was about to do, and wrapped his arms around Zee's middle as his body launched and his fists swung in mid-air, not least to stop himself mirroring the action, "Hey! That's enough, okay? You can't do that, much as I know you want to, and believe me, you're not the only one, but we got to follow rules here, buddy. Which means you got to let us do our job to make sure he gets what he deserves, okay? That okay?"

He hung onto Zee, and the room trembled with fury. The knot of officers braided tightly round the spitting suspect.

Zee sputtered and then went limp, letting Flack relax his hands, "Okay? We're going to take him, and we're going to question him. Make sure we stop him hurting anyone else."

"Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay."

"Take him." Angell gave the order, "I need a minute here."

Wrestling and snarling, but trapped now, their suspect was dragged out of the room and Flack looked expectantly at his colleague.

"Out with a whimper _and_ a bang?" He jerked his head towards the splinter fringed hole in the floor, "Nice work, Jess."

She pushed her hair out her face and blew a stray wisp upwards, "You too."

"You got him." He wished the words were his from her.

"_We_ got him." Her eyes understood. Then she turned to the other man, "Zee…"

"Guess you've got to go now too, huh? Go ask him questions. Find out why he hurt Stella?" He stuck his hands in his pockets.

Flack felt his lips curl bitterly. If it was only so simple. Questions blew round in his head, raven feathers; swirling and suffocating.

Angell answered, "Yeah, and we're going to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else. You've helped us do that, Zee." She looked at Flack, "Don, I need to make sure Zee is safe. I'll join you at the precinct soon as."

"Sure. We'll let him cool for a few hours, get the scene processed."

Angell gave him a final glance from calming brown eyes; liquid and welcome, "Take care."

She was gone. Flack stood in an empty room.

………………………………...

Caught, trapped, failed. They had him. For now. Arms held him; no way to escape, yet. Rich suddenly laughed. Doubling over, sick, retching laughter spraying from his lips as he staggered forward in an unyielding grip.

They did not have him. They did not know who he was. It was only then he saw the blood dripping from his hand and the laughter died.

………………………………...

Janie, with one last muscle-tearing stretch, reached the pane of glass that separated her from the outside, and the catch to release its closure. A short, sharp tug…

"_No!_"

It would not move. She hit it with the heel of her hand, "Come _on!_"

Stuck fast. It brought a scream of frustration to the edge of her lips before she held it back with a fearful glance down at Alisha. No good. The glass would have to be smashed.

With one hand steadying herself, braced against the window, Janie patted her pockets frantically for something heavy. All the while churning in her mind; he could be coming, he could be coming…

………………………………...

TJ kept his eyes on the sidewalk as he walked, entrenched in thought. Hands still clenched at his sides; arms brushing against his pockets, feeling the shape of gloves and a handgun inside. Early afternoon on the streets, linen blue sky that he did not see. He eeled through the crowds; no fuss; never touching anyone. Mind on his destination.

……………………………….

Nothing. Her pockets were empty. A frantic sob rose in her throat; she could _see_ freedom. A stretch of concrete just above the window, and beyond it, she presumed, the street. But they were still trapped.

Not while she could do _something_. For someone. Alisha relied on her, she would not let her down. Alisha was hers, she had to protect her; the ferocity of a mother sharpened her nerve and resolve. Janie looked at the window and then at her hand. Swaying and wobbling on the top stool, she cast her eyes around and alighted on a rag of curtain at the adjacent window. Just another stretch away…

………………………………..

The streets of New York were unpredictable. Every day the iridescent threads of pedestrians, tourists, passers-by spun and moved; spindrift across the city, cast out to all destinations.

And their pace was set by an unspoken signal that they followed in rhythm. TJ paid it no heed and moved to his own metronome. But with the skill of the maestro; no one noticed the syncopated tune he played for himself. He glanced at the passing faces - some laughing, some blank, some listening to the inner pulse of the streets - and remembered them all. He turned down a side street filled with the sound of a salsa beat playing from a hidden apartment.

………………………….

One sharp tug and it gave way, and Janie almost gave way with it. As the piece of cotton ripped from the curtain rail more easily than she had predicted, she almost fell. Her arms pin wheeled for a moment before she jerked herself still; locking her body into a crouch whilst she caught her breath and the tower she balanced on rocked to a standstill.

Alisha slept the sleep of the unaware as Janie wrapped the piece of material round and round her hand. Then taking a deep breath, she straightened, steadied and smashed her fist into the glass. It shattered and Alisha woke with a yell. A breeze of music danced into the room as Janie made a rapid descent to the floor.

………………………………...

The crowd thinned as TJ left the main thoroughfare. He wondered for a spare second where Rich was, and then tossed any concern away. He was safe; Rich did not know enough to betray him. Let him do what he would; be caught, kill himself, kill others. He did not care. As he made his final turn, TJ heard the crack of breaking glass.

………………………………...

Gasping for breath and trying to ignore the bruising she had just suffered, Janie clutched her wailing baby, and slung a blanket around her, tying her tightly to her back, soothing her with murmurs as she did so. Her bags, what was left of her possessions, she would have to leave. Things, trifles, they did not matter. Alisha would be safe…

Sounds of a ruckus upstairs. Someone coming. It had to be him. Returning to do what she did not want to imagine. Stifling a moan of fear and tears catching in her chest, Janie scrambled back up the rickety construction to the gap in the window she had knocked through, trying to soothe Alisha.

"It's okay, sweetie, hush, _hush_, Momma's got you, we're going to be out soon, promise, then you can have a feed, okay? Hush, _please _hush…"

Noise coming down the stairs towards the door, keys jangling. Janie spurted up and grabbed the window ledge, scraping her fingers on the jagged glass teeth left in the wood. No time to feel the pain. She heaved herself up, wriggling carefully so she was balanced and then unwrapped the screaming Alisha and laid her gently on the slab of concrete just above the window. A key turned in the lock and the door juddered as something kicked it. She thanked whoever was listening for sticking door frames, and began to squeeze herself through. And stuck.

"No, no,_ no_!"

It was the blanket, snagging. With a yank, she tore free, at the moment the door banged open and the man who had closed her in there burst through.

Janie squeaked in horror and wrenched her torso through the gap. It took an instant for the man in the baseball cap to look up and malevolence to sweep across his face. He leaped, and swung his arm, knocking the tottering tower to the ground. Her legs were dangling into nothing and she was slithering, falling, her hands hurt, they were slipping… Alisha's howls stopped her fall. Her baby needed her. A last desperate heave and she was through the window. _Free_. Janie gathered Alisha into her arms and bloody hands, stumbled to her feet and ran.

………………………………...

"Mac, I want to ask you something."

Stella drew her knees up carefully and clasped her wrists around them, feeling the healing skin underneath the dressing on her side pull slightly, "What happened to my gun?"

Since the attack in her room, it had worried at her; the vulnerability of her present situation, all she was missing, all that had been taken from her. She was a detective, a CSI, but she was lacking some of that identity.

Mac looked at her, and she guessed the question before he asked, giving him a half-smile, "I need to know."

In answer he dipped into his pocket, "Your gun is at the lab. But I have something else you might want to have back."

He held her badge out, and it lay between their palms.

………………………………...

"You got a few minutes, Lindsay?"

Lindsay's eyes left the sorbet coloured drifts of letters to see Hawkes and Adam standing opposite her; the thrill of the chase and catch a match in their faces.

She gave them a questioning smile, "If you're offering me some yourself, then have as many as you want in return. I'm not getting too far here." In Adam's gloved hand, she caught sight of a clutch of items, "What've you got?"

They glanced at each other with a grin, that Lindsay couldn't stop transferring to her own face, "Seriously you two, what have you found? What's with the smiles?"

Adam passed the items over to her, "We got another identity. This is what was inside the post office box, the one the key in the corpse opened. You, uh, might recognise the people in the photograph."

She did.

"Rita Franklin. And the guy with her…"

"Our first John Doe, the body in the lake."

Lindsay studied the couple in the well-handled image, noting the heads pressed together and the arms entangled with each other. She sighed, "They look pretty close in the photo…"

"Girlfriend and boyfriend close wouldn't y'say?" Adam pressed his palms onto the table and leaned over, a thoughtful expression replacing the grin.

Lindsay frowned, "I would, and it would fit too… Her neighbour, the old lady who all these letters belong to, mentioned a boyfriend, said she hadn't seen him since she disappeared. She didn't tell me his name…"

"Joe Delaney." Hawkes twitched the photograph out of her fingers, flipped it round and passed it back, "Name's on the back."

"Seems awfully convenient." Lindsay drew her eyebrows together, "What else was in there? And why would someone write their name on a photo, leave it in a post office box, and then swallow the key?"

"Exactly what we've been asking ourselves, which is why we came to you, Lindsay. We figured three great minds working together." A smile from Hawkes warmed her, and Lindsay welcomed the reassurance of her skills, and her part of the team.

"I'm flattered… what answers have you got so far?"

She stretched her arms behind her head before dropping them back on the table.

"So far? Not many. We have a hundred dollar bill, the photograph and an envelope containing a copy birth certificate, a list of addresses, but most interesting of all, a letter, 'To the finder' which brings us back to Joe _and_ Rita."

"How so?"

A softer look came over Hawkes's face, "You see, the letter gives instructions in the event of his death; tells us who he was, who he loved, and what he wanted to do for her." He took the bill from Adam and smoothed it out on the table, "We're looking at a life's savings here. According to the letter, this is all the guy had, and he wanted to give it to Rita, to make sure she was okay."

It sighed out of Lindsay, and she felt her eyes hot with sadness, "But he was too late."

………………………………...

Danny…

Just a finger moving, but it moved a room into action, and a host of people that flurried around the fragile family. It broke their hands apart, but Mrs Messer held her husband; dredging up the memory of too little time ago when they had almost lost him. But this time, she knew, the strength was on their side. She knew, she _knew_ Danny was coming back to them. He was her son, and she did not let go of what gave life to her. The life she had given, and been given.

They waited. And finally she knew for certain. A nurse came out of the room with the first smile Mrs Messer had seen given for her son in too long, "You can go in and see him. He's not quite back with us yet, but he's coming along nicely. Go in, go talk to him…"

They sat at his side. Watched his eyes fluttering, stroked his hands.

His mother placed the letter from Lindsay on his chest, "You get yourself back to us soon, Daniel Messer, you got people waiting for you."

**I hope you liked it, please let me know what you thought even if not. I got a bit worried about last chapter - still not too late to review that either :D Please review! Helps the job hunting too… Thanks, Lily x**


	25. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 25: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged. **

**Thank you _Fat Kat_, _Shadow Fox _and _Juliette _for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper review reply. Thanks to _iluvCSI4ever_ and _Blue Shadowdancer_ for discussion, confidence boosting and reading; to _chrysalis escapist_ for more thoughts on the story; _marialisa_ for idea bouncing; _Confused Knight_ for compliments; and anyone who's gently poked me to update. Sorry this is late.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 25

_30th July_

… _It was his fault, really. I know it seems like I'm just saying that, but honestly, how was I supposed to react when Joe tells me he's gone and spent twenty dollars on lotto tickets? I mean, that was twenty dollars we could have saved for our apartment fund. I guess he just didn't think about us though and our future. And he wouldn't tell me either if he'd even won a few bucks back. I guess maybe our future isn't as important to him as I thought. So I got mad with him…_

………………………………...

"Where was it?" Stella asked as she withdrew her hand, taking her badge and laying it next to her. Mac heard trepidation overridden by curiosity, "Did I have it on me?"

He hesitated, and realised it was concern for the memories it would disturb for him, still not laid to rest. Telling her about the hours in the deepening twilight and then the moonlit wasteland; the culmination of hours more of the day they had searched for her, not knowing how they would find her; telling her about that was almost too difficult.

And the moment they had found her; too late, gone beyond into the realms of shadows as he had thought… it still filled his waking mind with sable shivers of horror; led him to a necropolis of dust-stained blood and ruined buildings and left him choking for breath amongst its nightmares.

Her badge had been all he had to hold onto when the burned cadaver of the car destroyed nearly the last fragment of hope and humanity inside him. Don in the dusk moving towards him; Lindsay beside him. Mac remembered every second as they let go and he held on. But he had found the badge, such an integral part of who Stella was, and shut down everything inside him to hold on and believe that it meant she was still alive. It had proved him right. But what haunted Mac and worried at him like teeth on the back of his neck was that if he had not seen the black and gold object amongst the kicked-up dust then the present would be very different.

He would not be sitting where he was, talking to the person he was. He did not know where he would be.

She was waiting for him, a softer look in her eyes, "Look, I'm guessing this might be tough for you as I know I wasn't in the best shape when you found me, but I still want to know, even - even if the details aren't pretty. And you got to remember, I'm still here to ask you, okay?"

"I know you are."

For a second he was there again, kneeling on the broken floor with Stella lying in front of him; too much of her blood lying around her; almost too little left to find the life that was ebbing away.

A small crook of her head raised the ghost of a smile from him, and banished a few spectres.

"Yeah, well, just reminding you, Mac. I _am_ still here."

The reminder of her presence was needed, but he did not tell her that. Even though he was talking _with_ Stella, not without her.

"I found it by the car. That was how I knew you'd got out." The words scraped from his throat.

"Must've got knocked off my belt, when I was dragged away from it." Resentment twisted her face, "When I couldn't even get myself away from a burning car. That _really _pisses me off…"

The membrane holding back the fear and the fury at all that had happened was ripped unexpectedly by her words, and he turned to Stella with his face crunched up in anger, "So you'd rather have been left to die, is that it? Because given a choice between your pride and your life Stella, I know which one I'd choose!"

Her eyes widened and glittered, "You think this is just about my pride? Because if so, you're _seriously_ mistaken!" She moved herself round so they were face to face, eyes meeting and sparking, "Yeah, it's a part of it, I can't deny that, but it's not just pride." Clenching her hands, she looked away for a moment, and then snapped back round to him, "Don't you _get_ it? I've had nearly everything taken from me since that scene; nearly everything that's important to me! Not least that I'm struggling to do the most basic things for myself here. Do you _know_ how often I've gone back over what happened? Right from the start, when I couldn't stop them from taking our evidence for the case…"

"As I said to Angell, given a choice between evidence and my team, I choose my team every time."

"What else was I supposed to have done? Sat back and just let them take everything?"

There was no simple answer, "I don't know…"

"If you think I acted recklessly, then tell me, Mac."

"I don't think you acted recklessly. You did what anyone would have done and more in the circumstances, you have nothing to blame yourself for, Stella."

"Neither have you."

"I could have got to the car sooner, and stopped them."

The hurricane was not blown over yet.

Stella's voice raised, "Not the point, Mac! I should have been able to defend _myself_. I tried to, I tried _damn_ hard, but I couldn't get my piece out in time and stop myself getting shot, and then… then I failed again when they set the car on fire and someone else risked their life to save mine…"

She crumpled a little, and it crushed Mac's heart. It hurt to hear her say that. Because it brought his own failures back to throttle him.

"You _didn't_ fail, Stella, and that's the end of it. You've risked your own life more than enough times for others; and don't tell me you've forgotten what happened yesterday; you saved yourself, and by all accounts me as well. Don't tell me that's failing."

Still sitting at an angle, facing him, Stella's face was flushed and her hands were agitated, "Maybe, but I still failed to defend myself at the scene! No one else should have to do that for me, and you know what else? _I_ don't want, and I know _Danny_ sure as hell won't want, either you or Flack or anyone out there being a knight in shining armour, putting yourselves in danger to get this guy!"

Mac let her frustration buffet him, and it blew away some of the shrouding from him. A ray of sunlight cut across his eyes, threading gleams through the room, "Clearly you don't, either of you, and that's not what this is about, as I know you know! This is about bringing a killer to justice, and a man who seriously injured two of my CSIs. So you're going to have to allow a little personal feeling in there too."

"You shouldn't even have to be _here_, Mac…"

"We've been through this. You shouldn't have to be here, Danny shouldn't have to be here, but you are, so I need to make sure you're both able to get out of here safely as soon as possible."

"Damn straight! I don't intend to be here any second longer than I have to." Stella suddenly deflated and Mac frowned; she was speaking again before he could ask her if she was all right. But he knew what she would say anyway, "I'm sorry, Mac, but being confined to bed, to this room, you know, it's… it's hard. And you're the only person I can take it out on." A wry smile appeared for a moment, "Guess you're sick of the sight of me by now, huh? No one could say you haven't seen my bad sides."

"I seem to remember you saying something to me a while ago along the lines of it's what partners do…"

"We take care of each other, I know, I remember." She answered, "I just… I don't know, I just don't want you to think I can't take care of myself, you know?"

"I've never doubted that, Stella."

Mac let a small smile lift his features. Even in circumstances such as these, arguing with an angry Stella rescued some of his heart that felt buried under an iron-bound sea; a rip-curl of life dragging him back into something like normality. The very fact that she was throwing words back at him meant she was also regaining her own normality and strength.

"So I have my badge…" The pause communicated eloquently as Stella wrapped her hands around her knees, the object in question between her fingers.

"And you want your piece as well." Mac finished, having taken a leap to where the logic of their earlier conversation was leading. He pulled his shirt sleeves up and folded his arms across his chest.

It took a moment of fiddling with the badge before she answered, "Yeah. Not having it, even here, doesn't feel _right_. I'd feel happier knowing I'd got it to hand."

Part of him agreed with her, swayed by the conviction she had herself, but another part doubted, "I don't know if it's…"

"It _is_ a good idea, Mac! I don't want to have to find myself in the same situation as before. And besides…" Her face cracked into a smile, "I already smashed the vase, and no one's replaced it, so…"

He still hesitated, and she pressed her argument home, gesturing to the side, "Come on, Mac. You know I'm right. I can keep it in the side table. It's at the lab, you can bring it, surely it's about time you took yourself out into the fresh air?"

A muscle cramped in Mac's leg, provoking a twitch in his face; he jogged his knee, "The lab can run without me there, and I've taken a few walks."

Stella raised her eyebrows, "I don't recall you doing that."

"You were asleep."

"Right." Her disbelief was plain.

Silence fell as Stella's face slipped into thoughtfulness again, and Mac let his mind rest for a moment in thoughts of the future he had scarcely dared hope existed so few days ago.

For Danny though, the future was still not secure; he had heard no more news on his condition since yesterday and thoughts of the worst came slithering into his mind too easily. Still gravely ill; he could slip away; one brave, one foolhardy action, and then one evil, calculated action and his life was hanging by a wisp of threadlace.

"Where'd you find my piece?" Stella broke into the darkroom he was starting to wall himself up in again. A slight smile on her lips, "Tell me if it's enough already with the questions."

"I'll answer whatever questions I can, Stella."

And he would. Not least for the very fact that she was asking them of him.

"It was by the car as well?"

Mac ran his hands over his knees, and pressed his back into the chair. The ill-designed back dug a hard edge into his muscles. Into a groove he was certain would be permanently left in his skin.

"Mac?" Stella was looking carefully at him.

"No, it wasn't, it was still in your holster. I took charge of it on the ride over here, and sent it to the lab for any prints or trace…"

"Which there wasn't, otherwise you'd've told me, right?" Stella nodded as he did in confirmation.

Silence stole over them.

To Stella, Mac added nothing more of the memory of the ride to the hospital with her which had writhed up again from the deeps. Or everything before that.

He had only strobe flashes of the end of the night, no narrative memory; jerking images that played from the warehouse: sending Angell disappearing into the darkness with her radio pressed to her mouth; the instructions to her forgotten now, something about time, no time to wait; Lindsay hovering and afraid, as he lifted Stella's limp body off the floor, feeling her so cold against him; Zee a shadow, locked into fear; remnants of light beyond his reach from Lindsay's flashlight as she hurried ahead; and himself not letting anything else into his mind other than that he was not going to let his dearest friend die in his arms…

Stella sat beside him and her eyes dropped to the badge in her fingers as she turned it back and forth.

Seized by memory though, Mac found the present overlaid by the past, double imaged. Watching his terror play again in the building which seemed to snake and warp and distend in his desperate haste; losing the faint sound of Stella's breathing till all he could hear were his footsteps. Two people, only one sound.

_Don't die on me, please don't die on me…_

They had made it outside; dazzled by the sudden lights and the rush of the crowd; feeling only then the chilling wet of blood soaked through a thin shirt; The first face towards them; words that he could not remember spilling from Flack's mouth as he grabbed Stella's hand and let it slip away; then his face vanished.

Mac had not stopped moving, had not let go of her until they were inside the ambulance and indistinct faces, no memory of their features now, had guided him and taken the charge of her life, coaxing it to stay. He did not remember the moment when it happened, only that her belt and holster were in his hands, and at some point on the journey one of the paramedics must have passed them to him. The blood on them transferred to his hands, adding to too much already there.

The picture stuttered again, a deteriorating film reel: Stella; still; still alive; a crowd of faces pressing around her; into the hospital they had still not left; hurrying, hurrying along, until he was stopped. And then she was gone as they took her away and he was left only with objects and blood, cold in his shaking hands.

But, the present; she was still here. A vital presence.

Green eyes looked into his at an equal level, a smile dappling their depths, "What are you thinking, Mac? I can almost hear your mind racing."

Mac looked at his hands. No trace left. They were steady.

He wanted to tell Stella; there was no one else who he could tell about the fears and memories that had burrowed a residence in him. Only he could not tell her; not yet. Stretching his torso, he rested his hands palm down on the arms of the chair and shook himself free from the past, for the time being, "I was thinking about your piece, that's all."

Her lips quirked, "I was thinking the same; when I'm going to have it returned…"

His cell interrupted. Flack. Stella caught his eye as she read the name on the screen he held in sight of her.

"Updates. Maybe." She said quietly.

"Let's hope so. Taylor…"

They both heard the brief conversation; it only took a few words. They had their suspect.

There was silence. Too much feeling for words. Now the moment they all wanted was actually arrived, Mac was bled dry of what to feel. His mouth and lips were arid and speechless. They had him…

Stella broke the silence.

"You know where you need to be."

It was a razor wire decision, "Stella…"

She had already decided, "In the interrogation room, _not_ here. I'm resigned to the fact I've zero chance of being there, which is why _you_ are going to get your ass down to the precinct in both our places."

"I'm not…"

"You're not leaving me here alone, there are two uniforms outside the door. I'm a big girl, Mac. I told you before, I don't need babysitting."

They were deadlocked. Mac sat himself up in the chair, hating himself for doing so, but raising his eyelevel just above Stella's as his only defence, "You were only saying before you didn't feel right without your piece."

It was a feeble argument, and she batted it back without blinking, "Then bring it back with you. Or ask Sid to bring it, he said he was going to visit today."

He hesitated, and brought his hand to his own holster, "I could…"

"I don't want yours."

The battle was already won. Mac stood up and looked in resignation at his partner, "I'll get your piece to you, and I promise you'll have a transcript of the interview if I can manage it, if that's what you want."

She nodded and sat back with a sigh, "Thanks."

"Are you okay?" Mac looked sharply at her: not as much as it could have, but the force of their discussion had taken its toll; the earlier colour in Stella's face seemed wrung out of her now, "Maybe you should rest…"

"Not much else to do here is there?" She grumbled, and reassured him at the same time, "You better go…" Her eyes flashed at him even as she sank down a little into the pillows, "Take care of yourself, Mac."

"Of course."

"Make sure you do."

He gave her fingers a light touch; suddenly, and irrationally apprehensive. Stella watched him as he left the room, and he took the memory as he closed the door and walked back into the world, and whatever waited for him.

………………………………...

Three cups of coffee cooled as Lindsay, Adam and Hawkes laboured at their task of sifting through the packets of Mrs Adams's letters.

Adam undid another faded ribbon and flipped through a bundle, "Still the same name, same address. All seems consistent."

"Seems." Lindsay frowned, "So far. We still got another box to go."

The afternoon had worn on without them realising; all of them becoming absorbed into other lives, unfolded and exposed before them in sheets of paper and silk ribbons; scented with damask rose and old lilacs. Love letters. Spread out now on a layout table in the most modern and romance devoid surroundings.

Reading the words written in a confident hand, blue ink throughout on an assortment of pastel shaded paper, Adam had felt at points a voyeur. His skin had prickled, glimpsing intimate, raw moments; and more than once his voice had dropped to a gruff few syllables and he had rubbed his fingers in the corners of his eyes reading of the things of human calamity in every day lives. Unique lives. Small to some, insignificant to others; but he felt them and sorrowed and celebrated as he read them.

Days of triumphs. Days of tragedies.

Laying down carefully the paper in his hand, Adam looked at his companions and their drooping eyelids, "You guys want some more coffee?"

Grateful faces responded; then Lindsay's cell buzzed. Adam lingered whilst she answered it, wanting to make sure he got her order right, and so he was able to see the joy that transformed her when she finally lowered the phone.

She turned to both of them, eyes shimmering, "That was… that was Danny's mom, from - from the hospital… she said… she said… there's someone who's - who's wanting to see me… Danny; he's awake! Danny's awake!"

Days of triumph…

**I hope that was okay, not much action, but I wanted some character time and a pause before upcoming drama :D Please review, please let me know what you think. Thank you, Lily x**


	26. Chapter 26

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 26: THANK YOU for all reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, always replied to if logged. Thanks to everyone who's alerted and favourited.**

**Thanks to _Fat Kat, Shadow Fox _and _autumngold _for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper review reply. Thanks to _Blue Shadowdancer _and _iluvCSI4ever_ for discussion and reading.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 26

_29th July_

… _I have some good news for you: Joe and I've decided that at some point in the not too distant future we want to get an apartment together! It makes sense, as he spends most of his time here anyhow, and his place isn't exactly what you'd call comfortable, or even clean. Certainly not to my standards. He doesn't want to give his up just yet though, sharing with the guys and such, but it's a big step forward for him to at least agree to the idea. So I'm very happy for the future and wanted to share that with you…_

………………………………...

It looked no different, the city that his life was inextricably bound with, whose pulse of life beat in his veins and whose lines, flaws and scars marked his person. There were no changes he could discern after an absence of eight days from the world beyond four walls; maybe just the faintest tinge of russet on the edges of leaves as the streets wound past; a scent of imminent Fall in the air as he had walked out of the hospital.

Sitting in the back of a cab, crowd scenes reeled past; a glimpse of lives, for a second part of his, and then gone; never to be seen again. Except, he knew, it was not improbable he would see some of these lives again at their end. The city lived on too many deaths.

The streets he had been away from teemed with life. Human dramas scrolled by beyond the window; visible in all their beauty and repugnance; love in age holding hands, coupled with youth's raised hand, screaming mouth and a slap to a face.

He thought of what one raised hand had done to his team.

His own invisible to them, he saw faces glide by; distant; approaching; there; passing; gone. Through glass stained polychrome as sunlight glanced off a window-armoured office block. He sat and watched life projected, saw himself reflected.

A ride without conversation; although he could see the driver's eyes flicking up to the mirror now and again. Red digits ticked up the fare and the smell of hundreds, of thousands of past passengers crept onto his clothes, undisguised by the wash of pine air freshener swinging above him.

The journey continued along with his thoughts, and little pieces of himself slipped away; replaced by the other lives that made up his own.

He thought of Stella and Danny.

He thought of justice.

He thought of Claire, and the silver sliver of her that had run itself into his heart bled a breath of pain suddenly.

He thought of injustice.

Thoughts of where he was going took the rest of him; why he was going; who he was going to find there; what he was going to do. And who he was going to find within himself when he arrived.

………………………………...

"What do I do now?" Lindsay faced her colleagues; joy, bewilderment and tears across her face. Her cell clattered onto the table, "I - I don't know what to do…"

Hawkes, still with a smile, looked at Adam, and back at Lindsay, "I think you should go and see him."

"But I can't, I mean, it's still the middle of my shift, and we're not even halfway through these letters, and I still got a heap of evidence to go through in the burglary, and I can't leave you guys here and expect you…"

Her eyes darted back and forth between the two men as the words babbled from her lips.

Hawkes handed her cell back, "Lindsay, go. We can manage here for an hour or so, and I know for sure you've had no lunch break today, or for the last week, so I think you can go and see Danny without any guilt whatsoever. Adam and I got it covered here, right?"

"Absolutely." Adam's head bobbed up and down, "We're good. Tell Danny we're waiting on him returning soon as."

She still hesitated, so Hawkes moved round the table and gently took hold of her shoulders, turning her towards the door, "The letters will still be here when you get back, take our regards to Danny."

Another tear wavered down her cheek, "Thanks. I… thanks."

She fled from the room.

………………………………...

The hospital had become almost as familiar as the lab, and more familiar certainly in the last eight days than her apartment. When she reached the room she was sure she would remember every particle of for years to come, there was no hesitation; her hand clasped the envelope she had snatched out of her locker before she left the lab and her feet took through the door and straight to the little family around the bed.

Danny's father pulling her into a quick, tight embrace; Danny's mother seizing her hands and kissing her cheek, pushing her towards the bed, and then… there was Danny himself.

Alive. Eyes open; the first shine of colour meeting hers for so long. Still not quite the Danny she sparred and sparked with; but the Danny she had stayed with, and would soon have back. His mother's hand alighted on her shoulder, and her voice whispered a few words. Lindsay nodded, and flashed a watery smile of thanks, then heard his parents' footsteps leaving the room.

Danny, still surrounded by machines and tubes, with wires latticing his body, but still Danny. She stroked his hand and played her fingers across his palm; the familiar surface with all its lines, scars and flaws.

"Hey." She murmured. Her lips could not stop trembling and her eyes dazzled with the water that slid down and hit the sheet with a silent splash, "I've missed you Danny Messer, you took your time."

He blinked and his hand stirred under her touch.

"But I forgive you, okay? And I got a lot of stuff to tell you." Lindsay smiled and her finger traced a heart over his palm. Her eyes drew towards the letter she had written him, only one in the end, that was at his side. She took it up, adding the one she had brought, and placed them both on her lap, "Well, I've already told you a lot of it, so you're going to have to get yourself better real quick so you can read everything I've written down for you…"

Danny's fingers wrapped round hers suddenly and Lindsay held her breath as his lips parted.

"But if you want, I can read them to you." She said softly.

A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes and a sandpaper dry croak came from his throat, followed by words that were unmistakably his, "Nice… Montana…"

The black lines of his name glimmered and an ink tear rolled down the envelope in Lindsay's hand. She opened what she had closed and began where he had finished.

………………………………...

They were waiting. The sky draped like white sail cloth over the city, with not a hint of breeze to lift the heat; but at least the precinct was shaded and cool inside, and the ceiling fans turned a gasp of air. Angell sat with Flack in the spider web of shadows cast by the high windows, and watched the crepuscular rays creep across the floor. Waiting for Mac.

Unlike past days however, they had something to wait and hope on. Flack's phone was in his hand, having rung a short time before; Lindsay in a burst of near incoherence, telling them Danny had finally regained consciousness. It had lifted some of the crushing desperation off Flack; Angell could see for the first time since the crime scene, his back straighter and younger. A few of the years that had bowed him had fallen away with the news that there was hope at last for his friend's recovery. Almost immediately, lighting the beacons of communication, he had contacted Mac on his way from the hospital to the precinct. Angell had heard only Flack's half of the conversation, but had easily interpreted how the other man had received the news.

Now they waited for him.

Flack, quiet after his effervescent elation had bubbled down, sat tapping his cell phone. The look on his face showing he was anywhere but the present. Pulled, Angell guessed, by his priorities; wanting to see Danny; waiting for Mac; waiting for the day to be over and the man in their custody to be charged and served with justice. She shared his wishes; she wanted to know herself that Danny was really all right, not least because of what his recovery meant to Flack.

They waited.

Flack's hand and phone moved in a tattoo against the desk top, and out of synchronisation, his foot drummed an accompaniment on the floor;

_tap… bang tap… tap, bang._

The sound hammered into Angell's brain, and after a few minutes spent clenching her hands in her pockets, trying to absorb the brool of conversation around them to deaden it, she could take it no longer.

"Don!"

"What?"

_Bang… bang… tap._

Her hand dropped on top of his, and she pressed her foot onto his.

"Enough already. Please."

His hand and foot stilled under hers.

"Don't give me much choice, do you… sorry, bad habit."

"Yeah. Hating waiting?" She grinned, and moved her boot off his shoe.

"Yeah."

"Me too. It sucks." Her hand remained where it had landed; Flack did not pull away.

Angell sobered as she saw studied his appearance; his worry seemed to have cut him out at the edges with pinking shears; his outlines jagged and alien. His foot started its compulsive arrhythmia again.

"You think it's a good idea, Mac being here?" It was a question she had asked herself and had answered several ways.

Flack's eyebrows met his hair, "You think my life would have been worth _preventing_ him being here? I tell you something else, Jess, given even a whisper of a chance, Stella would be here too; I'd be more than willing to bet on that. But Mac not being part of putting this bastard away? Never going to happen."

He rubbed his face, and Angell saw the mesh of exhaustion pressed into his features that had still not lifted. Almost unconsciously, her thumb rubbed the back of his hand.

"You're concerned about what might happen in that room. What might happen with Mac…"

She saw vulnerability in his eyes, and it sent a chill veining through her; she felt helpless to help him.

"I'm not only concerned about Mac, I'm concerned about what…"

"About what _you_ might do. I understand, Don. But you have to remember we're here to do a job, and as personal as it's gotten, it has to be done by the book, maybe even more so than usual. And I know you know that as well as I do."

A wry smile appeared, "So you've not only taken to finishing my sentences, you're reading my thoughts as well?"

"My bad habit." Angell returned the smile briefly, "Seriously, Don, I can understand some of what you're feeling and what Mac's feeling; you've both known Danny and Stella a long time, and you both care about them on a personal as well as a professional level. I can make a pretty good guess at how you feel over all that's happened…"

Blue eyes with glacier ice in them met hers, "I can't even tell you how I feel, Jess, never mind how Mac feels. His team's everything to him; you know how he is, still waters on the surface, but any attack against his team and the people he's close to and you've roused a tiger. When I was with him at the hospital after Danny'd been taken there, and when we found Stella… _before_ we found her… I didn't know the man in front of me then, I didn't even know _myself _."

She opened her mouth to try and form a reassurance, but her tongue was paralysed. Danny's friendship with Flack was something she took as part and parcel of him. The continuing uncertainty of his condition was in large part responsible for the lines she had never noticed before on Flack's face and the lack of laughter that had previously been the lines she smiled at. She also knew well the friendship he shared with Mac and Stella, what they meant to him, and how he had suffered alongside them.

Even without those connections the memory of the crime scene still appalled her and tore across the professional distance she had tried to create: the horrifying bang and blam of the car hitting Danny; the sound as it screamed out of their reach and he crashed onto the concrete, equally out of reach. Those time-frozen seconds of unreality as she seemed to be running through molasses towards him seeing him falling and falling and landing and everything was too slow and too late and he was on the ground and the car was gone…

He was awake; he was recovering. But the memory remained eidetic.

Flack's hand slid from under hers and curved over it, "What are you…?"

"Thinking?" Angell swept a loose lock of hair away from her cheek where the strands had irritated her nerve endings. Every cell of her skin felt hyper-sensitized; not with the heat, but with apprehension that felt like fire ants dancing over it. Even as she stretched her mouth into what she hoped would pass for a smile, her lips felt tight and dry, "Seems I can't help myself with the sentences, hey? If you want the truth, I was thinking about Danny. I guess I'm not alone in that, and I didn't even need to use my mind reading powers to figure that."

"You got me figured out, detective."

His smile was not enough to melt his eyes, and Angell sighed, "Don, if this is going to help at all, you know Danny's got this far, he's not going to give up now." She kept her hand under his, "He's going to be okay."

"Yeah, I know, I know..." He drew his eyebrows together, "Knowing that doesn't make me feel any more lenient towards our perp though."

"I know."

As she wondered how to continue, the doors at the other end of the room swung open and Mac walked through.

She and Flack stood with a glance at each other, and made their way amongst the maze of desks to meet him, Flack grabbing up a folder first. To Angell's eyes, having not seen him since the night they found Stella, Mac looked as if only the vestiges of the man she had known before then were left. His voice, as they exchanged a cursory greeting, sounded full of splinters, and his skin was drained to the colour of milk and water. A large bruise, darkly purple and cranberry coloured, stood out on his neck. As he walked, his stride seemed to falter on each step, even as he tried to disguise it.

He turned to Flack, "Thanks for the call on Danny."

"Glad I could be the bearer of good news for a change. I'm going over to make sure of him myself later."

Mac nodded, "Soon as he's up to his boss visiting, I'll do the same."

"Stella okay?"

"She'd be here if she could." The first gleam of life Angell had seen appeared in Mac's face. She caught Flack's eye and their earlier discussion passed between them.

They stood in a lull for a moment. Flack shifted his weight, and handed the folder to Mac, "Called at the lab earlier, picked up what we needed. Everything's in here; statements, photographs, prints. We got him; evidence is incontrovertible. There's no way he's slipping through our fingers, Mac. Take a few minutes and look through it."

"Good work."

Angell pulled out a chair for him, "We're in room one. We'll see you in there."

Inclining his head, Mac sat without another word and opened the folder. Angell took Flack by the arm, and walked them both out of the bullpen to wait a little longer.

………………………………...

Tired as she was, although she did not want to admit it, Stella lay awake, propping herself up against the pillows. Her eyes drifted closed every few seconds, but she forced them open again before sleep filled her head. Mac had left a couple of hours ago, and she missed the presence of another's life with hers in a room she did not want to be in. Her gaze wandered to the walls and the door and the window, then back again. There was nothing and no one else. A nurse had come in briefly and Stella had welcomed the visit. But she was alone again now.

Her badge lay beside her in the narrow bed and she ran her fingers over the surface and the outline of the numbers, thinking back to all that had been said with Mac.

She felt the absence of her piece as she heard the sounds of the corridor just out of sight. An exchange, which had the beginnings of an altercation, was audible outside the door. Her body tensed, and her breath tightened in her chest as she listened. Then voices died down and the door opened a crack after a gentle knock.

Anyone wanting to do harm was unlikely to knock, she decided.

"Come in!"

A face appeared in the gap, a uniform visible behind it, peering in. Stella's face broke into a smile and she let herself relax, "Hey, Sid."

The uniform, seemingly reassured, disappeared.

"A slight disagreement between myself and the gentlemen outside over the item I was bringing to you, Stella." Sid explained as he came in and sat down next to her, "Understandably, but I persuaded them of my good intentions for carrying a weapon."

She titled her head, "Really?"

"Mac called me and asked me to bring you this." With a smile, he passed her the piece of herself she was missing, "And I have some good news to tell you as well about Danny."

………………………………...

Flack stood behind the glass and looked through into the room where the suspect who had given them no name sat with his head on the table: dressed in a grimy white T-shirt and ragged jeans; greasy dark hair flopping over arms which he had wrapped around his head. A pittance of a man.

Standing by the corner, looking straight ahead, a silent uniform stood with her face immobile. Angell waited rigidly by the door, her arms folded across her chest; gimlet stare fixed on the man in the chair.

No lawyer and no other representative was present. That refusal had been the only thing the man had said when his Miranda rights had been read. Nothing else since.

The door opened and Mac entered; jacket discarded, shirt sleeves pulled down, a button at the neck undone. Flack felt himself stiffen and his heart stammer at the sight of the man he had lost sight of since the crime scene. Every line of his demeanour and his body was blade edged, and his eyes, even through the detachment of the one-way glass, held no pity or mercy. Blind Justice, or Nemesis; Flack passed a hand over his eyes, wiping away a tear of perspiration from his temple. It remained to be seen.

Angell offered a chair again to Mac, which was declined. She sat, Mac stood. The tableau held for six seconds and then the folder in the CSIs hand came down hard on the table, photographs spilling out of it. A head raised slowly. The interview had begun.

**I really hope that was okay, it took longer than I planned to get to the interview, but next chapter will focus on that. Characters may get angry :D Please review and let me know what you think! Thanks, Lily x**


	27. Chapter 27

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 27: THANK YOU for all reviews! Really hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue, reviews are welcome at any time, for any chapter and always replied to if logged. Thanks for all alerts and favourites.** **Thanks for the reviews: _Fat Kat, Shadow Fox _and _autumngold _(thanks also for reviewing 'Perfect Symmetry')sorry I couldn't send a proper reply. Thank you to _marialisa_ for reading, and to _chrysalis escapist _for extra thoughts.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 27

_28th July_

… _We went to visit Joe's mom today; the first time in weeks. I'd been nagging about it for days and finally managed to persuade him, even though I really don't like going there myself. I can understand his reluctance, it can't be easy for him the way she is and it always makes me feel uncomfortable whenever we go. She was no different from our last visit so we didn't stay long. It's put Joe in a bad mood for the day though, and I so wanted to talk to him about our apartment. Tomorrow will do, but I don't like putting things off in case tomorrow doesn't arrive… _

………………………………...

Rich felt the vibration of the folder hitting the table travel through his forearms and cheekbones. Curiosity and a sting of apprehension brought his head up off his arms and made him look at the man in front of him. He had already assessed the female occupants of the room. One in uniform who he did not know; one of many milling about the precinct who had raked their eyes over him as he sleep-walked through their procedures, taking pieces of him; photographs; saliva; blood from his hand. They had violated him; _him. _He had thought he was untouchable, inviolate. Another wrong.

The other woman he knew and felt a knife of hatred twist in his belly. She was responsible for where he was now; one of several responsible. There were others to blame too, not least Rita and her mistakes; if she hadn't made them, he would not, under TJ's orders, have had to kill her. It was the other female detective's fault; if she had not fought back, he would not have had to shoot her. Jake's fault too; if he hadn't argued with him, he would not have had to shoot him.

It was all _their_ fault.

The list of culpability went forward to the woman standing watching him at the side of the room. And back to Irene and his father. Rich looked through the years to the halcyon days before his stepmother had appeared and slurried his life. He knew the people who were to blame. Never himself. Never his fault.

Always _their_ fault.

He looked at the man in front of him. Another familiar face. Rich never forgot a face. He was not afraid of any of the people in the room; they knew too little. He would give nothing away here; would say nothing, no matter what they said.

The man's eyes though… they made Rich begin to doubt himself just a fraction, and put a hairline fracture in his confidence. He was suddenly aware of the size of the room and the proximity of the man in front of him, and the fury filling the lack of space between them. Rich ground his teeth together and swallowed a whisper of fear in his throat.

Say nothing; they know nothing; _say nothing_…

………………………………...

The sound of the file hitting the table was the defining of the moment. Angell stayed where she was, letting Mac begin what they all wanted finished. She had interviewed suspects with him before, and had already made a calculated guess at the steps of the dance he wanted to lead in these circumstances.

Already the room was hot and fuggy and she could feel the iritation of every thread of the light cotton blouse she wore. Her limbs were locked into place, her back against the wall feeling the osmosis of heat from the bricks; still suffering a formication of insects over her skin as another silence bloated in the close space.

Mac's eyes were clouded panes of glass in a face that had taken on the colour of putty. He had become a damaged structure, and Angell was afraid it would take very little for him to demolish himself from the inside out. The cracks that had started at the crime scene were spreading across him at first sight of the man that had wreaked destruction like a wrecking ball into his team. The CSI stared in undisguised repulsion.

Finally, as he shoved a photograph across the table, Mac's voice rasped, "Remember her?"

The edge of the photograph crumpled as it hit the man's arm. He blinked, looking away at a point on the far wall, staying hunched over the table; a puppet with his strings cut. Angell remembered the other man who had been with him at the hospital. The one they had not caught yet or identified. Her suspicion that they did not have the operator of the crimes in the room surfaced again. They would find him though; she had confidence in herself and her colleagues.

She took her cue and stepped into the gap, "I'll remind you of her name; Rita Franklin. You put a bullet into her head and then returned to the scene to take the evidence of what you'd done. Except you didn't manage to remove every trace of yourself."

A glance at Mac and Angell continued, "You know why you're here. I'll credit you with enough intelligence to know that; three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, assaults on two officers and a civilian. And that's just for starters. Let's start with Rita though. Why'd you kill her? She someone else who tried to fight back?"

All she had read in Stella's statement only a few hours before fuelled Angell's last question. She knew men like the one in front of her, and every time they slithered across her path with the same story, she felt the same pit of loathing at their actions, "Nice bruise you got there. Want to tell us how you got it?"

Silence, even as she bent into his space, and got the reek of unwashed skin from his face and saw sand coloured stubble graining his face, not quite disguising the fading bruise, "Lost your voice, huh? I'll remind you about that as well. That was where Detective Bonasera hit you wasn't it? Before you hit her back and shot her. How'd that feel? Make you feel good did it?"

His response was an insolent sigh. It choked in her lungs and she had to step away and draw a deep breath of composure.

A look at her, and Mac brought his palms down onto the table, face inches from the man, "I'm going to remind you of Rita again. Take a good look and tell me what you see."

The man said nothing, glanced at the clock and back to the wall..

Mac picked up the photograph with a snap as it quivered in his fingers, "I'll tell you what I see: a young woman in her twenties, the rest of her life to lead. A life _you _cut short!"

Not a glint of life in eyes like stagnant river water, set too close together in an insipid face. Nameless. Or so he would think. But since his arrest in the early morning, the machines of investigation and identification had whirred into overdrive, delving deep into records and cases long gone cold, turning over the dry soil of evidence. They had found accretions of history and deeds done that they could undo him with. As long as Mac was not undone first.

He held the photograph of Rita in steady hands now. Too steady. She knew, she could see, across the façade of his control there were cracks mazing, and she wondered how long he could hold on.

………………………………

Of course he remembered how he got the bruise. Of course he recognised Rita, having had the impression of her face as he held the gun and fired drawn into his mind for the rest of his life. Rich remembered the face of every person whose life he had ended and their portraits hung in his memory; watching him sometimes in the darkest hours when he lay in whatever bed was his for the night, cluttering his dreams. Rita's face was there; Joe's too, along with Jake's and all the others. The last look of horror and shock forever caught, whether he wanted it or not.

And hanging in the duskiest corner of all he tried to forget was Irene's face the last time he had seen it in a terrified backwards glance as he ran from the first life he had taken; Irene's glassing over eyes looking through his and remaining forever. He could see her now and an involuntary shiver raised the hairs on his arms. He could see all of them, including the faces of the two detectives he had not succeeded in killing, forming phantoms in the corners of the room. The room that was taking on the claustrophobia and fust of a mausoleum.

Say nothing. Say nothing. _Say nothing…_

………………………………...

The man's arms twitched but his gaze remained fixed in the far corner. Angell could not keep the disgust out of her face as she picked up the photograph of the second victim; the young man in the lake.

Smacking it down in front of him, the image of the body recovered from the water with all the colour from his skin washed away filled her with anger, "Remember this guy? In case you don't, I'll remind you of _his _name: Joe Delaney, twenty five years old, found in the lake in Central Park, also with a bullet in his head. So what happened, you shoot him first, then head out to find Rita? All in a day's work was it?"

The man's eyes drifted briefly to Angell, and then back to the corner. No more than that. No remorse. No pleasure either, which was something Angell had seen before too many times. The grim satisfaction of the killer, delight taken in the undertaking of death and desire.

From this man there was nothing.

Mac stood breathing deeply. He undid the buttons on his cuffs and in slow deliberate movements, folded over his sleeves. Angell walked around the table. Noting as she passed the uniform the rough breathing of a smoker and a whiff of tobacco.

Spinning on her heels, she stopped suddenly and grabbed the shoulder of the man in the chair, "You killed him, same as you killed Rita. Your bullets, your gun. See, we got a lot of equipment here that can match these things up. Bet you didn't know that did you? I'll tell you what else we found; all those bullets you left matched up: Rita, Joe, your buddy in the car, remember him? We matched them with the bullet you shot Detective Bonasera with, and the one you almost hit Detective Monroe and Detective Flack with. You weren't as smart as you thought, were you? Sooner or later you slip up, get too confident, get careless. And then, _bang_, we got you!"

Her fist smashed onto the table and she enjoyed the surge of adrenaline, and the miniscule muscular reaction from the suspect.

She stepped back and Mac swung into place, crashing into Angell's last words, wielding another photograph from the file which was rupturing evidence over the table.

"You thought you'd done enough to get rid of all the evidence; killed your partner; burnt up any trace of what we'd collected from the scene; burned his body…"

Angell remained where she was, breathing hard, watching Mac, feeling her pulse beating against her chest. She knew where he was going to go next.

The man sat unmoved.

She pulled in another breath; the air was thickening, the light darkening and clothing the room in subfusc.

Mac's voice was like a lathe across wood, "You thought you'd burned _my_ partner to death in that car too, didn't you? Thinking you could silence her. We know what you did, the evidence you left told us what we needed to know, and Detective Bonasera herself told us the rest. We got it all here in her statement; what you did, what you tried to do. _Because she got out!_"

A flare this time in the man's eyes, but fire behind Mac's, even as the cracks in him spread a little more into fissures. Angell glanced at the mirrored glass, feeling Flack's eyes burning behind there. Knowing how close they all still were to the moment they found the car on the wasteland with the body inside they had thought was Stella's. Then she swung her head back round to face the man, seeing for a second flames rippling around him and then the illusion was gone.

………………………………...

Ignoring the basilisk glare of the woman, Rich's memory fell back to the day on the waste ground and the minute he realised the woman with them was still alive. He felt his mouth twist at the mistakes made. Some of his own, he had to acknowledge. He should have made more sure of death. Same with the other detective, the one he had driven the car into. His foot twitched, as it had that day. He should have pressed a little harder on the gas pedal, swerved a little more and hit the other man too…

Too late now though. He had not succeeded in killing either of them; on both attempts. TJ had also failed; the wrong choice of acolyte. He remembered the fury exploding inside the apartment when TJ found out through the lines of communication he had wired through the entire city that the girl in the hospital had failed at death. Rich, not wanting it to be turned on himself, had walked out and left his companion to his rage. It had led him to a night on a couch belonging to an associate who did not ask questions, and then to the events of the morning.

The woman was watching him; the man was watching him. And in the corners, the confines of the room shrank a little more towards him and the faces of the dead and the living moved a little closer.

Say nothing. _Say nothing…_

………………………………...

Angell intercepted Mac, challenging the suspect again, anything to provoke some reaction, "We found your shoe print at the scene, matches with the ones you're wearing today, places you there along with the memories of Detective Taylor, Detective Bonasera and myself. Remember the place? Eight days ago?"

No reaction; the man's eyes appeared to have glazed over and had not moved from the corners. But she noticed a glitter of sweat on his top lip, and one hand balled into a fist.

"Come on, don't tell me you've forgotten that day? Must've been pretty memorable, with what, _three_ murders and two attempted murders in less than twenty four hours?" She shook her head, and her hair itched the back of her neck, "Got to be some kind of record. Feel good did it; stealing a police vehicle, abducting and shooting an officer, running another one down, both of whom were just doing their job. Bet you felt a real man _didn't you?_"

For only a few seconds as she let her breath heave and her eyes bore into the man, Angell slipped into a memory more than twenty years old: she was back in the yard of her elementary school catching sight of a fifth grade classmate held up against the climbing frame by two sixth graders. The terror in the younger boy's eyes reached hers and before she knew it, she was racing across the asphalt, dragging them off, screaming and landing kicks to ankles and punches to noses while her knuckles burned and it felt like she was swallowing glass with every scream, until she was aware of hands pulling her away and back into the school, down the corridor to the principal's office. Then she was sitting amidst the floor polish and pencil lead smell of authority, facing the gaze of Mrs Janowitz who patiently explained to Jessie Angell what she should have done in the circumstances; how she should have called for help; how she should have let someone who was authorised take care of things in the proper way.

Fast forward, and here was Detective Jessica Angell now herself the authorised person; defender of the city, and those who defended it alongside her. All she could see as she looked at the man in the chair were the despicable crimes clinging to his shadow and the face of a friend overshadowing the years she had left behind her.

And all she could feel was the satisfaction and the _justice_ that had coursed through her veins when she had hurt those who had hurt her friend.

Angell looked at Mac, and then she looked through the glass to the invisible eyes of Flack and knew he had seen her. She felt the rage of all them as it skirled round the thickened air and contaminated them. The crime scene rattled through her head again: the silence of Stella's voice; the shriek of tyres; the shouts of Danny.

The silence.

Mac stood over the man; his skin had become marmoreal, veined and pale, "Did that feel good when you drove into him? You like the feel of power as you kept on driving? You want to know what you did to Detective Messer?"

Lids closed over dead eyes and blinked open again. If she looked too closely, Angell had a sudden dread she would fall into treacherous depths. She stepped back; following the steps Mac and she were carefully coordinating; letting him step forward and pick up another photograph, flip it towards the man. It was hard to suppress a flinch at the rawness of Danny's injuries in the harsh flash of a crime image. Mac, she knew, had let no one but himself undertake the task; similarly for Stella's injuries.

The man looked at what was in front of him, and then away.

Mac's breathing was ragged as he moved behind the man and pulled the back of the chair, dragging it away from the table and round so its legs squealed in friction over the floor. The man blinked and a corner of his eye jumped. Angell watched.

"Take a good look! You perpetrated a calculated act of violence against Detective Messer. You could have stopped, but you didn't…" Mac was closing in, his voice granite, "You kept on driving!"

His exterior was crumbling. She did not know how long Mac could keep his construction intact. Foundations shaken with the seismic shifts of the last eight days; rifts spreading uncontrollably. Angell waited and saw Mac reaching for the next photograph.

………………………………..

Rich's bones juddered as the detective pulled his chair away from the table. The faces inside and outside his head were becoming harder to ignore; eyes and blood from the long dead swarmed in front of his vision and they began to reach him with insubstantial hands.

No way out. They were pushing their fingers inside him, feeling blindly, groping for the words they wanted him to say; stroking his larynx and squeezing his tongue.

He gulped; his lips spasmed, but he fought it.

_Say nothing…_

But Irene's face was in front of him… It was _her_ fault, all of it, he had only done what he had to, _she_ got what she deserved, got what was coming…

………………………………..

Angell watched the man's lips move as Mac brought out another image, banged it onto the table, spun the man round again towards it. Stella. The injuries this man had inflicted on her.

Mac's voice was hewn from centuries of injustice as he spoke, "I'll show you what else you did to my detectives. What you did to my partner…"

The man's lips cracked open.

"Her… fault."

Mac moved in a heartbeat and dragged the man to his feet, yanking him up by his collar, his voice devastating, "_Don't you dare tell me this was her fault!_ Every single injury my detectives suffered is_ your fault_! And I'm going to make sure you pay for every single crime you have committed and every single act of violence you have perpetrated against your victims. You hear me? _Do you hear me?_"

He shook him, and Angell could not move. She was watching the inevitable. He was falling. She could not stop it.

The man's lips moved again, distorting into a grimace even as Mac's hands tightened, "She got… what she deserved…"

She could not stop him.

"_Mac_!"

"You _worthless _son of a bitch!"

The roar that erupted from his throat was bricks and mortar crashing down. Mac hurled the suspect against the wall even as Angell and the uniform lunged towards him. Somewhere she heard a door slam.

"_No!_ Mac! Let him go! _Let him go!_"

Hands were round the man's throat; his feet were dangling off the ground; choking and gurgling were all that could be heard. Angell heard herself shouting; her hands clawing ineffectually at Mac. He was shouting, but she could not hear what he was saying; all she could hear was the sound of a man losing the fight for breath; and the sound of another man losing the fight for justice.

**I'd really love to know what you thought of this chapter. Please review and tell me what you think, even if you didn't like it, but equally if you liked it I'd love to know! Thanks, Lily x **


	28. Chapter 28

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 28: THANK YOU for all reviews! I really hope this chapter lives up to them. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, always replied to if logged. Thanks to everyone who's alerted and favourited. Thanks to ****_autumn gold_, _Holly, Fat Kat, Juliette_ and _Shadowfox _(thank you for the reminder!) for your lovely reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper reply. Thanks to _marialisa_ for inspiring numbers, _chrysalis escapist_ for thoughts, _iluvCSI4ever_ for advising me and reading, and _Blue Shadowdancer _for reading.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 28

_27th July_

… _If you're overwhelmed by me sending a letter every day, you must tell me! I enjoy writing them though, and it gives me a purpose for the day as my diary isn't exactly bursting right now. However, I got a lot done today; grocery shopping, made dinner for Joe and ran a few errands for Mrs Adams. She's a darling old lady, but she seems kind of lonely. I don't think she has any family, but there must have been a Mr Adams once, well, I assume there was. They can't have had children though, leastways she never mentions any and none ever come to visit. I think she's taken me on as an adopted granddaughter…_

………………………………...

Flack was moving as he saw what was coming to pass before it happened; seeing the future on a collision course with the present, impelled by the past; all about to meet in a quantum explosion of fury and helplessness and grief. The moment Mac had seized the collar of their suspect, with the prescience of empathy, Flack knew what was about to happen and catapulted himself into the interrogation room.

"_Mac!_"

The glass shook in its frame as he flung the door open and crossed the floor in two strides to Mac; then he was heaving on his shoulders, trying to pull him away from what would cost him more than just his career.

Angell conceded her hold as he moved in and she took the other side; similarly the uniformed officer began trying to pull the suspect out of the cemented grip.

Mac and their suspect were combat locked, and in turn, the moment his hands fell on Mac's shoulders, Flack was pulled into the conflict of his own and his friend's emotions.

"_Let him go, Mac! _This isn't the right way…"

He heard his voice, but Mac's voice was almost drowning him out.

"You nearly killed her! You left her to die, you _bastard!_"

They were running out of time, if Mac killed this man…

_There would be one less criminal on the streets._

But he would have no justice, not the justice of the law.

_He would have taken a life for a life. Righting the balance._

But it wasn't _right_…

"Don't do this! Let him go, Mac, _he's not worth it; _he's not worth your career, he's not worth this!"

Death was too good for him, the thought whispered in his mind.

The man was grunting for breath, short, horrible chokes of dying air. His lips were turning blue; fingers like spider legs as they danced grotesquely, scrabbling at his throat trying to unwrap the fingers that clutched him; his face stippled white and purple.

"You deserve to die for what you did to my detectives, for what you did to _my partner!_"

"_Let go of him!_"

Desperation strangled Flack, as he felt seconds slowing then speeding up. He felt the battle beyond and within him. He had to stop Mac from doing what he, in the darkest hours of the night and the clearest, brightest hours of daylight had been wanting to do since he saw what this man had done; since he saw Danny's broken body at the hospital; since he saw Stella's blood-covered body in Mac's arms.

He _wanted_ to kill the man responsible.

He _wanted_ to squeeze the life out of him and see him thrash in agony. So much so, it terrified him.

But he could not. Mac could not.

_It wasn't right._

However much he wanted it to be.

"Don't do this! Please, Mac…"

He had to stop him; stop any more of him than had already come tumbling down around them all. Whatever it took. He owed it to Mac.

"_Please_…"

Under his hands, as they pulled, there was only skin and bone. Human frailty. He was only human. Prey to the love and violence and tumult that blew storms and earthquakes inside rooms and inside hearts. That could destroy hearts in seconds.

He was only human.

He knew how Mac felt, he did, and he knew he had to stop Mac and find the humanity that was somewhere buried beneath the collapsing heaps of vengeance and hurt. For the hurt of others.

But it would be _so easy _to remove this man, the man who was crowing for breath now, with etiolated skin, eyes bulging from his sockets. Just an un-lifted finger to remove him from humanity as he had almost removed his friends. Let the storms of violence reduce him to a heap of dust.

All he had to do was nothing.

No.

He had to stop this.

With a wrench of strength he did not know he had, Flack pulled Mac away and broke his hands from the man's throat. He felt his feet slipping underneath him, fighting against the struggle of everything that had happened in the last eight days, battling against the wrongs of everything that Mac had not been able to right. That _he_ had not been able to right.

And then it was over.

The strength crumbled out of Mac; he saw the skeleton of his structure tottering and slumping to the ground with a shower of fragments spiralling up into the murky light.

It was over.

Mac's arms fell limp at his side and he staggered, falling into Flack who caught and held on to him.

As his throat was freed, the man slid gasping to the floor, legs concertinaing beneath him until he lay in a scrumpled heap.

It was over. And the room was choked with airlessness and humidity and what had almost happened. Flack breathed in and out, supporting Mac whilst Angell and the uniform dropped down besides the man.

Consequences.

Assault of a suspect by an officer; no matter what the provocation, it was still a serious matter, going against the badge they all wore: the one that was fixed to Mac's belt; the one that belonged to Stella; the one that Danny would wear again, that he had worn as he stood in front of the car that had not stopped. Serve and protect. Flack saw and understood.

Mac was only human; all the identities he buttressed himself with, that he had seen concrete into place eight days ago had fallen away and revealed the man beneath.

He held onto his shoulders, feeling the chill beneath his shirt, and let the air whoosh out of his lungs, "Mac, we're going to take a few minutes, okay? Let's go sit down, outside."

With the care of the wounded, he manoeuvred Mac with no resistance out of the room. In a daze, Mac walked in front of him and Flack felt his hands shaking and his heart banging as he followed him. Towards what had to happen now. The consequences of violence.

………………………………...

Angell heard Flack leave, only glancing up briefly as the door swung and two pairs of footsteps left the room. She knew to leave him to whatever needed to happen with Mac. Her duty, however much she might not want it to be, remained with the suspect. She crouched beside him, ignoring the fear of what had almost come to pass shooting nails into her nerves.

The man was alive, still breathing, despite the mauve splodges on his face and neck, and the lung-fuls of air he was dragging into himself like a rusty saw through steel. His hands still clutched at his throat, at the ghosts of Mac's fingers; and his eyes held an expression that Angell knew he had seen in others' faces. The horror of death.

She understood what Mac had done, having felt an invisible line away from the same actions.

The uniform and herself hauled the man between them back into the chair, where he slumped. His whole body was a twitching mass of ruins, and Angell had an intuition that lying amongst the dereliction of his human remains were the spectres of others he had brought down. The dust of lives lost to his hand.

Something inside his eyes. He was looking at her, but not seeing her. The uniformed officer stood waiting for further instruction behind the man; betraying her own fear only with a fluttering hand to her throat.

Angell regarded the man coldly as he coughed, "Breathe in and out. You're fine, just keep breathing…"

She thought of the many whose breathing he had stopped and nearly stopped.

"You want a medic to check him over?" The uniform asked, her eyes flickering to the door and back. There were figures in the distance along the corridor.

"Not yet, hold off a few minutes, I don't think there's too much damage done to him."

Not physically, nothing that could not be repaired. But if they had taken any longer to haul Mac off… for a dalliance of seconds, a vision of what had not happened laid the man prostrate on the ground, life choked out of him by Mac's hands; her own and Flack's stilled in complicity. Justice of vengeance. A pyrrhic victory, and no victory at all, answering violence with violence. How simple it could have been.

He hand went to her badge as she stared at the man. He blinked. Seeing ghosts. She waited as his lips parted and a croak emerged.

He coughed and then words crawled out of his mouth, "Was… her… _her_ fault. You don't… know…"

It made her face contort, and took a mighty effort to keep her voice steady with the disgust that rose in her gullet, "If you think Detective Bonasera is in _any_ way to blame…"

He continued as if her words had been nothing, staring at the far corner of the room. An empty corner, "Had no… no choice… her fault. Worthless… _she_ called me worthless, stupid. She asked for it."

Doubt began to creep into her that he was talking about Stella.

His eyes were everywhere, flicking from corner to corner now. He rubbed his throat where the marks of Mac's fingers stained his skin.

"I wasn't worthless… wasn't. Was just… a kid… she had it coming."

He coughed wetly before slumping across the table; his head dropped back in his arms and a string of saliva hung from the corner of his mouth. His voice was half-stifled, "All her… fault. Irene's fault…"

Angell heard the name with a jolt. And knew suddenly who he was talking about. Who he _had_ been talking about.

She knew who he was.

All the forgotten files, the unsolved cases that they had unearthed, the entombed evidence, amongst all of them they had found things; found names and faces; found fingerprints and traces that matched and gave away the face and the name in front of hers now.

She dropped into the chair opposite and her hands fell flat on the table. Pummelling her, the weight of the day attacked her bones and collapsed them.

Nowhere near the present, the man's eyes were lost to past sins. Stone supplanted Angell's heart as she spoke in a voice hardened of any comfort. Her words were balladromic, "I know what you did. I know who Irene was and I know what happened to her, and whose fault it was. You thought you'd run away didn't you? But crimes have a habit of catching you up."

She hit her target. The eyes came back to her, their depths glooming with fear. His mouth sagged open and silent.

Angel continued relentlessly, "We know what you did."

She sat back, "And we know who you are."

………………………………...

They sat in silence. Two men who had known each other for years and had made those years times of conflict and comradeship. Colleagues and friends, and everything in between amongst the months and days of those years; now just two men. There was everything and nothing to say and Flack did not know where to start. Since the day and the hour when he had sat with Mac for that short time at the hospital as Danny had been rushed into surgery, when they had not known if Stella was even alive; since then he had not known what to say to Mac. He did not know who he would be saying it to.

He sat propping his elbows on the desk. The activity of the bullpen continued in the background and a circle of avoidance spread around them. The silent signals that passed amongst the officers seemed to have already relayed what had happened in the interrogation room.

The usual drunks and perps and addicts that riddled the space drifted around them. One bumped into the back of Flack's chair and a leery breath of stale alcohol swept over him. He jerked round with a glower and an apologetic officer dragged the man away; sparing a second to glance at Mac.

Flack turned back to him and exhaled, "Mac…" Then his forearms came crashing onto the table and he shook his head, "You know what? Go home. Go home, Mac. It's late, it's the end of one of the longest days of my life and I don't know what else to say. You've spent the last eight days in a hospital room with no time for yourself and you look like hell. I can't say any more about what just happened in there right now and I don't want you to either."

Mac raised his head and started to speak, but Flack held up his hands, "I'm not hearing it, Mac. Today is done. You're in no state to talk about this now, go home. Not back to the hospital, not to the lab, to your home where you haven't been for the last nine days. We'll talk about this tomorrow."

He stood up and stood over Mac until he pulled himself stiffly out of the chair and faced him.

"You need a lift?"

Mac's voice grated, "I don't need a lift."

"I'll call you a cab."

"I don't need a cab, Don."

"Fine." His shoulders lifted in resignation, "That's fine."

They reached the door and he pushed it open for the older man. Older than he had ever seen him look before. He knew who was to blame.

As he pinched the bridge of his nose, he leaned his weight against the door and closed his eyes, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Mac's shoulder brushed against his as he passed. Flack opened his eyes. He stopped and faced him, "I'm sorry."

Hands fell to his sides, "So am I, Mac. So am I."

There was nothing more to be said.

………………………………...

Angell found him sitting with his head collapsed in his hands. Abject defeat in a man she had never seen defeated.

"Don?" She put a tentative hand on his shoulder and waited for him to speak.

"He's gone." He spoke between his hands, "I told him to go home, Jess."

A glimpse of tired blue appeared above his fingertips.

"You did the right thing."

"Yeah." His haggard face emerged with lips twisted humourlessly, "I know damn well he aint going to go anywhere _near_ his apartment. He'll go to the lab and then he'll go straight back to the hospital."

"Which is where you want to be right now." Angell arched an eyebrow, and continued without waiting for a response, "So go there. No…" She folded her arms before he could begin to protest, "I got it, Don. Our perp's back in a holding cell for the rest of the night and I got the paperwork covered. Go. We can grab breakfast tomorrow and update then. _Go_."

"Jess…"

"Don Flack, you don't want to be arguing with me. I've gotten good at besting my brothers, you don't stand a chance. Get yourself out of here."

She stood and waited for him to do the same, and then nudged him towards the door, "I don't want to see you until tomorrow morning."

For a brief moment, she wondered if her eyes would give her lie away, and let her lashes fall over them as he looked at her.

"Thanks. I owe you."

"You owe me nothing, but if you're so inclined, you can buy me breakfast tomorrow, okay?"

She hoped the brittle smile she managed would not break in front of his eyes.

"Absolutely."

"I'll hold you to it." Sweeping him through the doors, she watched as Flack gave her one last look and then pushed his way outside. Her smile shattered and she turned back to everything that, despite what she had told him, would not wait until tomorrow. The clock at ten minutes past midnight lied; the day was far from finished.

………………………………...

The coda of the day; for some. The hours, the interview, the violence that had almost consumed him and almost destroyed his career were over. Mac left the precinct not catching the eye of any of those that looked and walked into the sapphire night; deepest blue above the skyscrapers; relieved by amber strands of lights that strung along the streets.

No one saw him.

People walked past and darted like gleams around him; the people he served and protected and did not know him.

No one spoke to him.

Just another man walking along the cooling sidewalks amongst the city of the night; architecture and people on the surface, waste and feculence underneath.

No one knew him.

He knew the people of the city and what they were capable of. He knew what he was capable of. What could rise to the surface.

A few lights blinked in the building that reared up and up above him as he entered. He looked at his watch; midnight ticked past, August died to September, and no one noticed.

Mac felt a stranger in his own home as he walked to the elevator and rode up to the lab. A few faces, inquisitive, hiding their questions, looked at him as he walked along the corridor.

He stood on the threshold of his office, leaning against the glass, taking in all that was unchanged in the time that had changed so much. Two cups stood on the desk where he had left them, where Stella had left them. A file on top of the never reducing heap, cover skewed to the side, bore her signature.

All that could have been left.

He stepped inside and stood in the darkness, and watched the city where the crowds and traffic and lights rivered below him in a jewelled flow that never ceased. He knew the reality behind the sparkle and the life; he knew that the night would die to morning and leave its consequences behind. And there would be nothing he could do about it. To protect and serve, always faithful, but there would always be failures. He could not, had not, and never would be able to protect everyone. The weight of the city's vastness and its throbbing heart of life and death was too much.

Unseen above the city, Mac removed his badge, held it with his hands and with his eyes and then laid it on the desk. He slid to the floor and sat staring into the darkness that wound round him.

………………………………...

Days ended, days began as the clock ticked over and August's yellow and gold deepened to September's russet and bronze. Though they were scattered like beads from a broken necklace across the city, the lives that still intertwined continued unbroken.

One joined two and made three as Flack reached the hospital and a smile broke over his face as he clasped Danny's and Lindsay's hands in his; and felt some of the cumber of cares fall away.

A young mother with her baby, escaped, safe, protected, sat in front of a detective and told her story, hands that had been cut and bloodied now cleaned and soothed.

Detective Markham and his partner sat across from each other in the glow of dinner and conversation, and joined hands across a distance that proved to be no distance at all.

Mrs Adams watched the swaying shadow trees above her courtyard and buried her hands in Joshua's fur, sharing his sleepless night and remembering the past.

Hawkes and Adam sat in a bar and with the satisfaction of connections made in the case, raised the glasses in their hands to each other and all the others who were not with them.

Sid rose from his chair, but she did not stir. He had stayed the past hour even when she drifted into sleep, wanting to give her company for as long as possible. Her right arm hung over the edge of the bed, so he placed it at her side, He held onto her hand for a moment and said softly, "Goodnight, Stella."

Before he walked away into the first hours of the new day.

**Sorry, it all got a bit angst filled. I hope that was okay. Please review and tell me what you think, whether you liked it or not. I'd love to know! Thank you, Lily x**


	29. Chapter 29

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 29: THANK YOU for all reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, always replied to if logged. Thanks to everyone who's alerted and favourited. Thanks to ****_autumn gold, Juliette, shadowfox, Irishgirl9 _and _fatkat_ for your reviews; to _Shining Zephyr _and _chrysalis escapist_ for both giving me a character suggestion :D and to _Blue Shadowdancer_ and _iluvCSI4ever_ for help and conversation. Slight spoilers for 'Admissions'.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 29

_26th July_

… _I've been doing a bit of thinking recently about what happened back home. I guess, if I'm very honest, that's part of the reason I'm writing to you. It's tough only having one connection to my home, my friends and my family, and I want you to know how grateful I am you stuck by me through it all, and believed me when no one else did. And that you want to keep this connection alive for me. You're a true friend, no one could ask for better, and I just wanted you to know that. Maybe someday I'll be able to do something in return for you…_

………………………………...

Dawn rising with the glow of garnet and heliotrope burned through the windows and across his eyelids. Warmth crept over and suffused him and the scents of sun-heated air brought him gradually to consciousness. Each passing moment returned awareness of himself, his surroundings and his memory. Darkness and dreams diffused.

Mac, alone, his office. A thin table leg against his back, rough carpet underneath him. Another night passed; the first night he had not spent in a hospital room since the crime scene that marked the transition point between before and after. Now nine days after.

He sat on the floor with his eyes closed, letting the sun soak into cold skin, and muscles that gradually unfroze until he was able to lift his arms from where they had sunk to the floor and clasp them round his knees. He breathed in. Breathed out.

He remembered.

The suspect; the words that had pulled out the last staves of support he had been holding himself upright with; the absolute loss of self and the tumbling memory of hands gripping the flesh of another and the anger; the need to hurt, to cause the same kind of pain to the man who had caused so much pain to his team. To Danny. To Stella.

And then he had done what he should not have done; he had lost control and allowed himself to be subsumed by the violence that he fought to exclude from the lives of others. That he had fought and failed to do. It was a searing realisation. Hopelessness threatened to settle on his heart and crush to flinders the last few pieces of strength, and his head crumpled onto his chest as he pressed his palms into his eyes. For a moment he stayed there, feeling that only ashes remained of himself and his life.

But there _was_ still life.

And amongst the cinders was a living ember, still there, surviving the devastation. Behind his eyes he saw it, let the morning's hope caress and kindle it, and he knew as he opened his eyes that somehow, life would resume and continue.

There _was _still hope.

And it was up to him to allow it to heal and restore him. Whoever he was, whatever he had done, he could not sit on the floor of his office and let the morning gather dust around him. He never had, and never would, hide from the repercussions of his actions.

Feeling every muscle protest, Mac lurched to his feet and gripped the desk as he stood up, turning impulsively to look out of the window and the urban expanse below.

A different view from the one he had looked down to in despair a few hours of darkness before; now he saw the streetlights winking out one by one as the fire-opal sun rose above the buildings, shimmering the sky; burning away the last grey shreds; the artificial neons and electrics fading to the inconsequential. The city waking to a new day. He stood and watched its arrival; watched the last heavy folds of night's mantle pale away to chiffon skies.

Sun glorying through the city, streaking golden trails across the sky, lighting leams in his heart.

There was still hope.

The first murmurs of early arrivals into the lab intruded into the silence, not unwelcome though. Life went on; the life of the lab; the life of the city. His life. Whatever he faced ahead. Whoever he faced it with.

On the desk, the two cups still sat where two people had left them. Himself, his partner. Stella. In the light of the morning, Mac saw the truth. Just two paper cups, already beginning to stain and disintegrate; ephemeral things. Last night's hollow realisation suddenly filled up with the knowledge that they were _not_ all that had been left. The people were left. There was still all of Stella left. The spark leaped to a flame.

The morning she had brought them into his office was _not_ the last time she would do that; he was certain. There were times ahead, times to share, other simple pleasures to enjoy.

Together.

Stronger and lighter with hope flaring inside him, he picked up the cups and dropped them into the trash. They belonged to before. Life was in the now and whatever came after.

He straightened the files that bore both his and Stella's signature. Not the last there would be: for the first time, he looked forward to the thought of shared paperwork, and it created the hope of a smile on his lips.

By removing the cups, his badge - the badge both he and Stella wore - lay exposed on the desk. Where he had left it last night. When he had not been able to see himself lifting it up again.

Mac stared, until the fingers of the sun laid across it and the gold coruscated and drew his hand towards it; hesitating, uncertain, and then determined. The city was still below him, the people still there.

He did not live alone.

He grasped his badge and recalled its part in his life. To serve and protect; before, now, after.

Never alone.

It was not time to let it go. It was not time to be alone.

But it was time to leave, and take the first steps of the journey back, however long it took and whatever lay ahead, to his restoration. To picking himself up from where he had fallen; with whatever help he needed to do so; from whoever would be able to give him that help. The one who had offered before, who offered now, and who always would offer.

_It's what we do._

Two people, one partnership. With the molten fire of the sun beginning to tingle along his skin, Mac closed his fingers around his badge and walked out of the door, his destination determined.

……………………………….......

At 8.30 am, the diner, tucked away down a side street that only she knew about and guarded the location of jealously, was serene and uncrowded; a haven away from the thronging streets.

Streams of sunlight wavered through the windows, making the formica table tops so blinding hot, Angell had to look away from them. The first day of September and still no release from the stranglehold of heat that August had held the city in for its duration.

She could not remember when she had last been cool, or when the last drops of rain had fallen onto the scalding hot sidewalks, or onto her skin. The sensations of heat had stuck so long to her and to everything, she had forgotten how the touch of Fall and Winter felt.

With a sigh, she blew a wisp of steam from her coffee and watched it disappear, as she looked round. The light through the plate glass bleached the colour out of everything and gave a dazzling corona to every strand of hair and every dust mote of her fellow diners, giving them a ethereal not-quite presence. They flickered and blurred as her eyes began to glaze with the fatigue that seemed to have become her permanent state since the crime scene. _The_ crime scene; the one assigned a definite article, the one that was acid-etched into the memory of everyone involved and affected. There were too many of them, and for some the healing was still only a promise.

She wondered where Mac was now; where he had gone last night, whether Flack's prediction had been correct. From what she knew of both men, she had little doubt it was.

The interrogation reared up in her memory; was it only a few hours ago? The night seemed eternal, and had seamed into morning with no hours lost in sleep. Her mind and body were almost screaming with exhaustion, but Angell felt that she had passed beyond the point of sleep.

There would be now the investigations and interviews, unrelenting questions: _Why_ had this happened? _How_ had this happened? No simple answers.

Since the tragedy of Inspector Gerrard's actions, the slightest professional wobble and IAB were in turbulence, dragging everyone with them. The panicked unspoken thought behind it all:

_It could not happen again._

It hadn't. This time. But how close _they_ had been - she did not lay any singular blame - gaped wide below her; gloaming depths that would drown her if she slipped.

_It had nearly happened again._

She had already been questioned: after the suspect had been secured in the early hours of the morning, a summons had reached her via a dour-faced uniform, and she had given a concise and robotic transcription of events, without any waver in her voice whatsoever. It had cost her afterwards though; when she left the room, she had to lean her back against the wall whilst her heart slowed. With no sleep to banish them, the words she wanted to shriek at the brass, who had stared blankly at her whilst she talked, still fizzed and hissed in her head.

Groaning, Angell curled her fingers round the mug in front of her and wished for a slug of scotch in it; and remembered sharing the potent taste of Irish coffee with Flack in what seemed like another lifetime. Before the crime scene.

As she waited, staring round again, blinking memory out of her lead-weighted eyelids, Angell's gaze rested on the company in the diner; from the tiny old lady wrapping up the remains of a pastry in her napkin and tucking it into a purse that was almost bigger than she was, to the young man in the wrinkled suit and tie who gulped down a mug of coffee and dashed out of the door at a speed that made the blinds rattle.

It heralded Flack's arrival, casting a ruffled glance over his shoulder at the fleeing customer. She looked up and everyone else disappeared into the backdrop. With a smile that dispelled some of her lowering mood, he sat down opposite her, and Angell pushed over the plate of food she had ordered for him and a second mug of coffee.

A frown clouded his features for a moment, "This was going to be my treat this morning."

He pulled out his wallet and was in the act of withdrawing a couple of bills when she stopped him with a firm hand, "I've got it Don, you already bought me breakfast the last two mornings in a row, so despite what I said last night, today's on me. Girl can change her mind, right?"

"I know how much extra paperwork you took on after what happened, buying you breakfast is the least I can do. I owe you…"

"You don't owe me, really, and if you don't let me get today's then I'll be offended. I'm a modern girl and I'm all for paying my own way."

She pushed his hand and wallet back across the table with a grin, and he relented.

"I'm getting tomorrow's then." Flack picked up his cutlery, "Got to let a guy be a gentleman once in a while."

Angell raised her eyebrows and her grin became mischievous, "You're always a gentleman, far as I see it… Tomorrow, huh? I could get used to this; three breakfasts in a row. It's becoming a habit."

Between rapidly disappearing mouthfuls of bacon and eggs, Flack's grin widened, "A good one, could get used to it myself. So, we got another date for tomorrow morning, same time, same place?"

After taking a lingering sip of coffee, Angell set her mug down and wiped a finger slowly across her lips, her eyes never leaving her companion, "You got it."

He smiled to sunlit points of light in his pupils, "Good."

They ate in silence for a few minutes, Angell taking surreptitious glances of amusement at Flack as he tore mouthfuls of breakfast between swigs of coffee, and deciding in a lighter moment that he must have a mouth of asbestos.

He caught her out, "What? Never seen a guy take pleasure in his breakfast? Come on Jess, I enjoy my food, what else can I say?"

"I like a man to have an appetite…" She let him read what he wanted to behind her eyelashes, and a smile that was not all innocence.

His mouth slowed. And they shared what was unspoken between them for a time-stopped moment.

Angell forgot how tired she was as she enjoyed the life in Flack's face, and enjoyed seeing his appetite returned; the last two mornings, breakfast had been a morose and perfunctory affair, with minimum conversation.

She guessed at the reason for the difference, "How's Danny?"

Another smile, and another weight off her heart.

"Doing good. Didn't say too much and I didn't stay long, but… he was Danny." His voice dropped, "We got him back, Jess. You know… you know, there were a few days there I didn't think we would. Couldn't say it then, but it hit me last night how close… Man, it takes a lot to knock Messer down, but…" He shook his head and leaned back, "It still scares me."

"He's going to be okay. Yeah, it's going to take time before he's back on his feet completely, but he'll do it, Don. You know that."

Flack nodded and swallowed, "Yeah. Yeah, I… I know, I know. But those first few days, and then after he… I thought we'd lost him. That day, I thought we'd lost _both_ him and Stella." Fear paled his skin.

"But we haven't. We _haven't_ lost them. They're both going to be okay. Don't live on the might-have-been, Don." She kept her voice insistent, warning him away from looking into shadowed mirrors of a future that had not happened, "Despite what happened and what's still got to happen, we'll all get through this. Trust on me that."

She clasped his hand, "Okay?"

"Okay."

She let the obscuring cloth of the present fall over the future; it was not time to scry for sorrow.

They finished eating in a soothing silence.

As they left the diner and slipped into the madding crowds, Angell found Flack's arm hovering around her waist. They dodged an old man with a shopping cart, and her hip bumped against his leg. He made the apology.

"Sorry."

She flashed a smile, "S'okay." It really was.

His arm pressed a little closer.

Inside the precinct however, a place that had taken too much of her time and pleasure recently, Flack's arm returned to his side. Angell held the door for him, and they made their way over to his desk, professional personas instantly in place. He dropped into his chair and she perched on the edge of the desk; the pall of the room creeping back into her head made her realise how tired she was.

Tiredness would have to wait.

"You calling Mac?" They had both avoided his name over breakfast.

Flack's expression hid behind the mask he had lost earlier. He took out his cell with a curt nod, "No time like the present."

……………………………….....

The hours of the day moved on and the hours of those that lived moved forwards; as after became now and became past.

Danny lay in his bed and let his body rest and heal; impatiently. He was everything he hated; helpless, trapped in a hospital bed, missing out on the life that he knew was going on around him, without him.

Looking up at the ceiling, he groaned and tested the raising of his undamaged hand, wiggling his fingers, tracing patterns he imagined in the air above him. Empty air. Everything he could feel hurt. Hurt like _hell_.

And he was alone. His parents had gone to snatch breakfast from the hospital canteen; Lindsay and Flack had returned to work, both with promises to return later, Lindsay's accompanied by a kiss that was sweeter than any he remembered before and gave the promise of many more after…

His hand drifted back to lie across his chest and a smile appeared on his lips.

He wasn't so alone after all.

………………………………..............

Mac had taken, finally, Flack's advice and gone back to his apartment for the first time in nine days. The door opened on cold air and dust swirls; nothing edible in the cupboards; one putrefying carton of milk in the fridge. But domestic details could wait.

The first proper shower he had taken in all that time, other than hurried washes in the hospital, was a blissful sensation and he savoured every drop of water on his skin.

Flack's call, brusque but underlaid with concern, came as he was dressing: a meeting with IAB in two hours to discuss the events of the interrogation.

He was ready to face the consequences.

There was one thing he needed, and wanted, to do first though.

Half an hour later, as he entered the hospital, Mac thought of how differently he did so this time; nine days ago, when he had first passed through the doors, the lives of Danny and Stella had been almost beyond hope. Now they had everything to hope for.

He still had hope.

Mac paused outside the door to Stella's room, afraid suddenly, knowing that her eyes would burn right through any defence or pretence he put up, and see everything there was to see. There was nowhere to hide, but he knew he did not want to hide anymore.

Another difference was apparent immediately as he walked in: Stella was sitting in the chair at the side of the bed, a robe wrapped round her, and a smile he had missed shining on her face as she looked up at his entry, and greeted him joyfully.

"Hey, Mac. Progress; I finally got out of the damn bed. Not far, but something… and the next step is me getting myself along to make sure of Danny, and then walking out of here."

Mac enjoyed seeing life sparkling around her, "I've no doubt of that."

She patted the bed in question, "Sit down, we'll trade places. You take the bed this time."

Her smile softened as she studied his face, "Where'd you go last night? I hope you made it to your apartment, if you still remember where you live that is."

She quirked an eyebrow and Mac gave her a quick smile as he sat where she had indicated. One leg rested gently against hers.

"I made it to my apartment."

Stella shook her head and her smile faded, "Not for long enough. And not to sleep, right? Seriously, Mac, please, you _have_ to start looking after yourself; I know how much you've put aside whilst you've been here with me, and I know what it's taken out of you."

There was no chance for him to say anything before her next words, a softer note in her voice, "Talk to me, Mac. You're carrying the cares of the world on your shoulders… and you're going to talk to me about it. Whatever it is, you don't have to carry it alone."

She ran her hand down his forearm, and kept it over his wrist; her fingertips a butterfly touch, overlaying the steel inside her, "Share some of it with me."

When he didn't answer straight away, gathering the swarms of what to say, Stella tilted her head and looked into and through him, "Tell me what happened in the interrogation. Whatever happened, tell me about it."

At that moment, Mac could hide nothing from her eyes that he saw, with a sudden tremor of certainty, could see his past, present and future; in all its hope and despair.

He told her everything.

**Sorry this has taken a while to update; I found this chapter very hard to write, so I'd really appreciate thoughts on it - good or bad? Please review and let me know what you think. Thanks, Lily x**


	30. Chapter 30

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 30: THANK YOU for all reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, always replied to if logged. Thanks to everyone who's alerted and favourited; to****_ fatkat, Juliette, shadowfox _and _autumngold _for your reviews - sorry I couldn't send a proper reply; to _Miss Poisonous_ for inspiring the scene between Danny and Stella, _chrysalis escapist _for extra thoughts, _Blue Shadowdancer _and_ iluvCSI4ever _for reading.**

Lost Letters: Chapter 30

__

25th July

… _You know, I think you'd adore Mrs Adams, and of course her cat; you don't get one without the other. Maybe one day you'll be able to come out here and get to meet all the people and places I've met. Joshua and I are great friends, which makes me a great friend of Mrs Adams - apparently he doesn't share his affection with just anyone, so maybe I'm not such a bad person after all. We understand each other very nicely, even if we do have our little disagreements about who the food in my fridge, and even sometimes on my plate, really belongs to…_

………………………………...

Twelve days after the crime scene, and the two people at the heart of the hurt caused sat together for the first time since that time. No words between them. Until one of them, out of desperation, created a break in the stillness.

"Talk to me, Stella." Danny rasped, "You been sitting not saying a word so long we're in danger of an uncomfortable silence."

It was an attempt to draw some of the pursed-lipped solemnity out of her face, which was making him uneasy.

She had walked into his room a short time earlier; slowly, and leaning on Mac's arm, but with a look of triumph on her face at the accomplishment as she eased herself into a chair.

Mac, looking worn, had given him a few words and taken his hand in a brief, tight grip, before asking Stella to stay where she was until he returned. The request was met with a sharp look, and the moment he left, Stella's features had fallen into their current sombre expression. There was something unspoken between the head of the lab and his second in command that was not entirely happy, Danny was certain. That, and the apprehension he felt at what Stella might say to him, berefted his tongue temporarily of any smart comments.

But he tried again to leaven the atmosphere, "You're freaking me out here. Don't do this to a guy in a hospital bed."

It lowered her face even further.

Danny sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his undamaged hand, wishing he was not in such a vulnerable position; lying on his back straitened within hospital sheets, facing a taciturn Stella Bonasera only inches away from him, "So you're mad at me, I get it, okay, just say it."

She said nothing.

He flopped back into the pillow. Three days since he surfaced from the deeps of the unknown, where he had been enfolded in slumbering, white eiders of oblivion; that blanked memory and identity; hearing whispers that tickled like feathers at the edge of consciousness. Until something had pulled him up and out.

Something that had reached him and found its way into the heavy dreams and siren songs of never-waking solitude. Someone who had spoken, called his name, turned him against the tenor of succumbing and made him remember who, and why and what he was: Danny Messer; a man who did not give up so easily; a man who loved his life and his friends; a man who had almost given up the one for another…

The one who was sitting with him now, who until a short time ago, he had not seen since the day she was snatched from their sight; shortly followed by his own snatch from life. Since taking the unthinking decision, the decision that did not need thinking about, to try and stop the bastards he knew had hurt one of his friends. It needed no more thought.

But the decision had almost taken his life; and the consequences were still making their aftershocks felt.

And this was one of them; the reaction of Stella herself. Manifested in her silence and the look in her face that he could not quite fathom, but he was going to try. If only she would talk to him.

Danny tried again, "Say anything; yell, shout, curse - whatever, _anything_… Talk to me. _Please_."

She shook her head, sighing heavily, and spoke at last, "I'm not going to yell, or shout, or curse, not here anyhow. I'm not mad at you… "

"You're a bad liar, Stell."

Running her hand through her hair, she bayoneted him with a glare, "All right, fine. Yes. Yes, I _am_ mad at you, Danny. For nearly getting yourself _killed_ for no good reason!"

He grunted, and turned his head away, fixing his gaze on a faded print of sunflowers on the opposite wall, "It was a good enough reason for me. What else was I s'posed to do? Let them drive off with you, without doing nothing to stop 'em? Don't think so." Danny risked a glance at her, and saw glints in her eyes, "I couldn't do nothing else! Me and Mac, we shot at 'em, and they kept on going. I was closer, car was coming towards me… and they got too close to me. I had to try and help you, somehow…"

"By throwing yourself in front of the car?" Stella's tone was a mixture of anger and something else. It made him wince as she continued, "There's a fine line between heroism and stupidity, Danny. I'd say you walked it there, if not _crossed_ it!"

"Don't tell me you've never done the same…"

"I've never thrown myself in front of a car!" She retorted, "What the hell were you thinking? No, wait, you _weren't _thinking, were you?"

"I was thinking about trying to help a friend." He mumbled, rubbing his face where the first prickles of stubble were fuzzing over his cheeks; the day after he had woken, Lindsay had given him one of the most welcome shaves in his life, but he was in need of another. His face itched.

Stella did not reply; instead she turned away with another shake of her head, and he felt compelled to add gruffly, "And I'd do the same again."

She whipped back round to him, "You shouldn't have to, Danny, _you shouldn't!_ I didn't need heroics…"

"I know! And it wasn't. Wasn't nothing to _do_ with heroics! We heard you shouting, we heard the shot… reactions took over."

She dropped her hands onto the arms of the chair, giving him a thundercloud glower which did not completely overcast a softer shine, "It nearly got you _killed! _What good would that have done anyone, huh?"

He had no answer, and they fell silent again. Danny looked at her, taking in the differences in her appearance since he had last seen her, on that day he could remember so little of other than the heat; the suffocating heat that had broiled his brains, razed his skin…

He remembered Stella sending him for water; the first icy drops down his throat; the bottle hitting the ground as he heard her shout… then the shot; his own and Mac's in return… then the scream of car tyres and his yells and Mac's, and the car coming towards him so fast, something hitting him, hard. So hard it knocked all else out of his head and himself out of time.

Until he woke up and registered the pain. So much pain, more than he had ever felt in his life. The litany of injuries that the doctor had recited meant nothing other than _pain. _

Everything hurt. His leg, his wrist, his ribs with a breath-stealing ache every time his lungs inflated, his head… everything. _Hurt_.

But the pain he saw in the faces of his parents, was suffering that he almost could not bear; it serrated his heart. Theirs were the first faces that had blurred then focused and drawn him through the glassy seas of surfacing. His mother clutching him - all the parts of him she could reach - as if she never meant to let go; his father weeping with a shocked, white face and his hands holding his so tightly it wrapped webbings of fear around him.

Their terror and their grasp on him told him more than any doctor could how close he had been to slipping away and being lost forever.

Then as he breathed and realised he was still alive, he had remembered what happened…

__

Stella.

It was the first panicked, hoarse question to his parents; but they had let him rise further back to life with the answer that she was alive. Still alive.

The rest of the details on how came later; how close she had also been to never seeing another day. And seeing her now, with the lack of colour in her complexion, the faint scar on her forehead and the hand she unconsciously held against her side, confirmed it. They had both come too close. It terrified him if he let himself think about it, and about the injuries that had left his body harrowed.

But they _were_ both alive, and it was still unmistakably the Stella he knew, sitting here beside him.

Looking at him.

Danny shifted himself to better face her, "You're giving me that look."

"What look?" She narrowed her eyes.

"_That_ look…" A sudden coughing spasm laid him out for a moment; Stella helped him gulp down some water, before he wiped his mouth and blinked at her, "The look… look you're giving me right now, Stella. Like you're afraid you're about to see me disappear in front of your eyes. Same look people have been giving me since I got back to the land of the living - ma and pa, Lindsay, Flack… now _you_. The one that says… that says 'you shouldn't be here'…"

As the brightness of tears appeared in her eyes, he added in a quieter voice, "You been getting the same from people, huh?"

Stella nodded mutely, and Danny felt the fear that was squashed up inside him like a ball of cellophane start to unfurl and explode open again. Fear that was replicated in her face. He had to talk, keep on talking, to crush it up again and stop it crushing him, "Then don't look at me like that, please, don't. 'Cause I _am_ here, alive. I ain't disappearing. I survived…" He grabbed her hand, "And so did _you_…"

A tear silvered down her cheek, "I know, I know. We _both_ did, Danny."

For a moment, no more words were needed between them in the stillness of a September afternoon.

………………………………..............

With Adam as passenger, Hawkes drove through Manhattan. Waiting at a red light, he stared out of the window; not at the streets, but up and above at the sky; oceans of moonstone blue that captured his eyes; with a shoal of birds that swam and danced in scintillation between the buildings. He smiled at the shifting configurations breaking apart into whirling bodies that flung themselves into everywhere, and then returned to the whole.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adam sitting with a serious expression on his face, "You okay?"

The quick glance he threw the younger man was returned with a smile, "Yeah, I'm good, Doc… yourself?"

"Doing okay."

Conversation died down as they continued into the suburbs. Hawkes let his thoughts run on events of the last few days that had caught up the lab and its people, and most of all the head of them, Mac. Everyone in the team knew the broad details of what had happened in the interrogation room; what Mac had done to the man responsible for at least four homicides and the injuries to Danny and Stella. The man who was now secured and awaiting trial.

Hawkes knew unequivocally where his sympathies lay; and not for the first time wondered what he would have done in Mac's place. That was not such a clear-cut answer, and it troubled him.

The IAB investigation had so far concluded with Mac issued a warning and an enforced leave of absence for a week - something that could only do the head of the lab good, so Hawkes saw it. Events had taken a terrible toll on him; not only physically and emotionally. When he saw him yesterday, alongside Stella, the strain was still etched into every line on his face. They had not spoken beyond the superficial, but it was behind the eyes of all three of them.

They were all still feeling the tremors of the crime scene, he realised. Sitting next to him, Adam was unusually subdued, and Hawkes lent a hand of good news.

"I saw Stella yesterday." He began.

Adam's face brightened, "How's she doing?"

"Doing good. She's being discharged tomorrow."

"Hey, that's great!" He beamed, "Any idea when Danny's going to get himself out of there too? I'm going over later, catch him up with stuff, you know, keep him up to date."

"Going to be a little while yet, but knowing Danny, I'd say he's not going to be in any longer than he has to be."

Hawkes could not keep a grin off his face as he spoke; it felt good to speak about Danny without a wave of fear and misery sweeping over him as it had done so few days before, when his prognosis was very different.

But time had changed, and so had their hopes and fears. And now one had almost consumed the other.

There was much to hope for.

Where they were going however, was not to give hope, and Hawkes found his heart sinking again at the thought of what he and Adam were about to do. The part of his job he found hardest to do - not deaths, not bodies, not the perpetrators of violence that he was forced to share hours of his working life with - but the living victims. The ones left behind who lived on after death. Sometimes, as he knew too well, in their own never ending deaths, lost to futures hoped and dreamed for, and destroyed. And he was about to bring the details of death to another living victim.

The destroyer of hopes.

The journey ended too soon, in front of a small clapboard house in Queens; the white boards gleaming bright and dazzling his eyes as he stopped the car. The house of Mrs Delaney, mother of Joe, the young man found in the lake.

"We here?" Adam slipped his seatbelt off.

"We are."

He wished they were not.

With a heavy heart, Hawkes climbed out and waited for his colleague to join him at the white picket gate. It boundaried a garden that threatened to spill out onto the sidewalk. In contrast to the white gate and fence palings, the front yard was a rampaging tangle of weeds, shrubs and wild, waving grass either side of the path. Reaching tendrils of unidentifiable plants caught at their ankles as the two men picked their way to the front door.

Hawkes gave it a smart tap and footsteps were soon heard along a wooden floor.

The door was opened cautiously by a middle-aged woman with sleek chestnut hair wearing a trim, navy blue tunic and trousers. A smell of cleaning fluids and polish wafted round them, and the view Hawkes had of the hall was of furniture and fittings cleaned to the bone.

"Mrs Delaney?" He held up his badge, "Sheldon Hawkes and Adam Ross, NYPD crime lab…"

The woman took a studied look at his badge, and frowned, "NYPD…? Well, first off, I'm _not_ Mrs Delaney, but may I ask what your business is here?" Her tone was brisk and business-like.

Hawkes ruffled a little, ""May I ask who you are then? If this _is_ Mrs Delaney's address?"

"It is. I'm Sara Burns, Mrs Delaney's carer." She held out her own badge, identifying her as a nurse employed by a care company Hawkes had knowledge of as being reputable, "Are you here to speak to her? Because if so…"

It threw him off-kilter, and he exchanged a look with Adam, "Her carer? Ms Burns, I'm here to speak to Mrs Delaney on an urgent matter, is she able to speak to us?"

The woman's gaze switched back and forth between Adam and him before she stepped back and ushered them through the door, "You'd better come in then gentlemen and I'll explain. And you can do the same."

"Thank you ma'am." Hawkes raised his eyebrows to Adam's startled look, and they followed her along the hallway.

She led them into a painfully pristine sitting room. Only after being invited to, did they both sit down.

"Can I get either of you coffee?"

"No, thank you, we're good." Hawkes, in tandem with Adam, shook his head and then perched on the edge of the couch, feeling the usual discomfort at being an intruder into someone's house and day.

Sara nodded, sat down opposite them, and waited.

Hawkes cleared his throat, "Ms Burns, we really do need to speak to Mrs Delaney, I have to ask you again, are we able to? Is she at home?"

Sara flicked a hand across the arm of the chair and no dust flew. There was not a speck in the room to be seen.

"She's home, but Mrs Delaney isn't going to be able to speak to you, I'm sorry. But as well as being her carer, I also have her power of attorney, and I'm able to speak for her…" A flash of something passed across her face and she stiffened in her chair, "Is this… is this about her son, Joe? Only, we haven't seen him in a little while, and I was only thinking this morning, that, maybe I ought to…"

Hawkes leaned forward, "I need to know why Mrs Delaney isn't able to speak to us, please Ms Burns, before I can tell you any more. I need to know the reason for this."

She sighed, "Mrs Delaney suffered a massive stroke a year ago, and it's left her incapable of speech or much movement, and confined her to a wheelchair. It also affected her mind and memory; she lost who she was, and who she'd been. And unfortunately, it's meant she's lost most of her friends and family too - most days, we're lucky to get a visit even from the postman. I've been her live-in carer since it was decided she could return home." A look of cynicism appeared as she continued, "The hospital and her medical insurance decided it would be more cost-effective for her to be cared for here. It also meant she lost the social contacts she had in the hospital."

Hawkes felt the sorrow of a story that was not unfamiliar. Adam bowed his head.

Sara plucked at the cushion beside her, "Unfortunately, her condition is deteriorating. So much so that most days now, she's unable to leave her bed." Her hands dropped into her lap, and grief spilled into her voice, "Most days, she's… she's not really here anymore, in the present. That's something Joe finds really tough, and I suspect why his visits have dropped off recently. Last time I saw him must have been a month ago; he and his girlfriend Rita called, but they didn't stay much above an hour. She didn't seem to know her own son, and became very distressed when he was in her sight. Joe looked devastated when they left and… and I haven't seen him since."

"You had no more contact after that?"

She hesitated, and a faint flush came to her cheeks, "No, but if I hadn't heard anything by the end of this week, I was going to call him - it was one of those tasks I hadn't gotten around to, you know how it is…"

Hawkes nodded, "I do, it's okay, I understand."

He understood, even though he wished he did not. It was too easy not to do so many things; to put the phone aside, leave the letter unanswered, the visit unmade.

And he understood too that Mrs Delaney and her son had lost each other even before death.

He continued in a gentler tone, knowing the story he had come to tell of Joe's death could remain untold no longer, however how much hurt it would cause, "You see, Ms Burns, Joe is the reason why we're here…"

………………………………..............

Across the city, Lindsay sat in the trace lab packing up the last of the letters belonging to Mrs Adams, in preparation for the return to their owner. She knew now what the old lady had meant on that day, almost two weeks ago, when she spoke of lives and deaths within the letters. If what she suspected was true then there were several lives caught up in the paper sheets; and one life created amongst them.

There were still questions, and she was impatient for answers. There were still too many questions she was hanging theories onto. Still much to do before Mrs Adams's robbery case was closed, and before the addendum to Rita Franklin's could be solved - the reason for her identity hidden between layers of different names and addresses.

Lindsay picked up the bagged letter she had found along the street, the one that revealed the real Rita, the real name, the real address. The real recipient. A phone call and a message waited for a response from Rita's correspondent.

Closing the box lid after laying the last letter carefully inside, Lindsay picked up her jacket and prepared to leave. She was stopped, however, by her cell phone ringing. For a moment her heart banged in a sudden horror: something was wrong with Danny…

But it was a number unconnected with Danny. It was the one she had called the day before.

"Detective Monroe"

A young woman's voice, its accent holding a ring of the mountain states close to her home, answered her.

"Detective Monroe, this is Jenny Anderson. You called me and left a message? You said you needed to speak to me about Rita. Is everything all right? Has she gotten herself into trouble? Please tell me she's all right."

__

I wish I could…

Lindsay sat back down and composed her voice as she began the story of the end of another life.

**At the risk of repeating myself, I'm unsure about this chapter. Does it make sense? Is it what you were wanting to happen? There's going to be more about what Stella thought of Mac's actions in the next chapter. Please review, if you liked it or not! Any thoughts really help. Thanks, Lily x**


	31. Chapter 31

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 31: THANK YOU for all reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, always replied to if logged. Thanks to everyone who's alerted and favourited; to ****_fat kat_ and _autumn gold _for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper reply; and to_ electric-dreamer, iluvCSI4ever, Blue Shadowdancer, chrysalis escapist, afrozenheart412 _and _webDLfan_ for discussion.**

**Dedicated to _Blue Shadowdancer _from a 'poor reader' ;)**

Lost Letters: Chapter 31

_24th July_

… _I've been suffering today, and not just with the heat that seems to have set in for the summer. That's one thing I'm finding hard to get used to here in the big city; give me our mountain climate any time! I'd give my right hand for the shade of the trees by the creek right now. And I had a bad moment when I called on Mrs Adams downstairs - I was helping her wash up after she fed me lunch, and dropped and smashed a cup she'd only been saying she was fond of minutes before. I felt just terrible, but she was more than sweet about it, telling me it didn't matter, that there were more important things than cups that could be broken. I guess she's right. Things break too easily; promises, hearts, people. Somewhere hidden inside that tough old lady exterior, I wonder if Mrs Adams has her own broken heart…_

………………………………...

"It wasn't her fault. It _really _wasn't. Never mind what anyone else in the town said, Rita didn't _deserve_ to be treated the way she was. It was wrong! They forced her to leave, and I lost my best friend because of it! I don't know if I can… if I can… ever _forgive _folks back home for that!"

The young woman stopped with her hands to her mouth and caved in to the sobs that had been threatening for the whole interview. Her shoulders shuddered and her face crumpled up in misery, "It's _not fair! _She didn't deserve this! She was a _good person! _Why? _Why_ did this happen to her?" Her words almost drowned in tears, as she spluttered despairingly, "I should have _helped_ her more, I was her friend and I let her down! I should have realised, and come over, or sent money… or… or _something_. It's my fault!"

Her words burned into Lindsay's emotions, melting the ice floes of detachment she tried to protect her heart and self with so often.

Feelings flooded as she leaned forward in empathy, "It's _not _your fault, Jenny. Don't say that. You did everything a friend could have done. You can't blame yourself."

But the young woman was lost for the moment to any comfort, caught in cataracts of sobs, and Lindsay pulled herself back, and waited. Realising she needed some moments to pull herself out of her own guilt.

Jenny Anderson had flown to New York from Wyoming, after discovering what had happened to her best friend, Rita Franklin. Jenny, as Lindsay saw it, was one more victim of the man who had murdered Rita. Another, but not just another. One of so many victims; and if she was inclined to, Lindsay could put herself in that category - the gash where the bullet had sizzled the skin of her arm itched if she thought about it, and its fierce red line still marked her flesh. She would be wearing long sleeves for a little while yet. She rubbed at it, and then pulled her hand away, embarrassed for thinking about it, when others had suffered so much more.

Not least the two they had almost lost: fifteen days after the crime scene and Danny remained in hospital, and likely to be so for that number of days again; Stella had been released two days ago, but was forbidden to return to even lab duties for at least a week.

Visiting her yesterday at home, Lindsay had listened as Stella vented her frustration, and offered all the sympathy and friendship she could, trying to purge the guilt from the memories that sank poison-dipped talons into her.

Knowing it was the first time she had seen Stella since the night they had found her so near death, having manufactured reasons and excuses for not visiting her at the hospital, Lindsay had bowed under more shame: still horrified with herself for not calling in the stolen car immediately after it almost ran her over, driven by the men who had abducted Stella and hit Danny with its ton of deadly metal; still suffering with the thought it might have saved some of Stella's suffering if her radio had not been defunct and her reactions cauterised by the scorching near miss.

She had failed a friend.

Stella did not blame her, however. That was not the kind of person she was, Lindsay knew, and had known. And when she faced her friend and colleague, and was welcomed with an embrace and warmth that thawed tears frozen for so long, she had been able to talk and confess, as she felt it, every bitter moment of that day.

As she talked, salt water sliding in hot trails down her cheeks, Stella had offered comfort and reconciliation, along with a mingling of her own tears. Relieving the weight Lindsay realised she had been carrying only with its removal.

She had _not_ failed.

She left Stella's apartment with a buoyant heart, knowing she had a friendship that was unbroken, and the promise of its continuation.

But as Jenny sat in front of her now, and cried with the anguish of friendship broken by death, Lindsay felt the encumbrance of her uncertainties.

"Jenny…" She began, but could not break through the sobs that were engulfing her, "Jenny, _please_. Listen to me…" Her voice was urging but gentle, "You can still help, Rita. We have the man who killed her awaiting trial, and we have the evidence to convict him, but I'm still in need of answers, and… and you might be able to help me out. She wrote to you, and she trusted you, so do you think you could help me with some of the questions I have? Please?"

Lindsay reached forward tentatively and touched her hand, "I know this is difficult, and you've travelled a long way and you're tired and… and devastated by what's happened, but this would really help me, and help Rita."

The tumult lessened, until Jenny raised a face smirched and streaked with grief, but hopeful.

"You… you think I can still help her?"

"I _know_ you can, and I think it's going to help you as well." Lindsay passed over a few sheets of Kleenex and waited while Jenny scrubbed at her face, "Start with what happened at home. Why did Rita have to leave?"

With a trembling hand, Jenny reached for her glass of water, "It was a misunderstanding, a terrible misunderstanding. Wyoming's big on empty spaces, but small on towns. Rita and me come from a place with some small-minded people. You probably don't know, living in a place like this…"

It provoked a wry smile, "Trust me, I know. I may live here, but New York is not my home town."

"Where is?" A blush crept into Jenny's cheeks, "That's awfully rude of me to ask, I'm sorry…"

"It's fine. I'm from across the border, Montana."

"Then I guess you understand."

Lindsay nodded, "But you get good people too in small towns, same as any place."

Jenny heaved a quivering sigh and dabbed her eyes, "Rita's a _good_ person. She just… she just made a few bad decisions. And in a small place like home, there were real big consequences." Her hand shook as she placed the glass of water back on the table, and ran her finger up and down the side, "We both had good jobs in a law firm, where I still work, but Rita wasn't happy. She was ambitious and wanted to do more, you know?"

Lindsay nodded again and began to feel an affinity with the person who was so absent, and so present in the room. And began to see her younger self; looking above and beyond the big skies and achingly vast landscape that seemed to swallow her self; that had swallowed her friends, "I can understand that."

"We had contact with a lot of clients, some of them were big names in the town, and one of them took an interest in Rita. He charmed her - sent her flowers, candies, dinner invitations. She refused at first, but then accepted, and told me she was letting him take her out to dinner. I tried warning her against it, I don't know why, but there was just _something_ about him… something I didn't trust." Jenny paused, and her cheeks flushed.

Lindsay pressured her gently, "What happened?"

"He took advantage, plain and simple, got her to trust him, and then _used_ her." The flush in Jenny's face spread to her neck and crimsoned with anger, "He charmed her into altering documents regarding some real estate he owned, telling her he'd been hard done by, and it was simply righting a wrong. Rita was too good-hearted, she _knew_ she shouldn't have done it, but he sweet-talked her into it, and promised he'd take the brunt of any consequences." Her face twisted in disgust, "Oh, he made her all kinds of promises, and then broke every single one of them."

"Rita told you what she was going to do?"

"We told each other _everything_, we've known each other since _forever!_ I loved her - she was like my sister." Jenny looked at Lindsay with glistening eyes, "It's what we've always done… And yes, before you ask, I _tried_ to stop her, she knew the penalties there'd be for altering legal documents, but there was nothing I could say to persuade her - once she'd made up her mind, it was almost impossible to change it."

The picture in Lindsay's mind was drawing itself before her eyes; the golds and silvers of friendship and loyalty, the livid reds and purples of selfishness, deviousness, and then the darkly green and black of betrayal. Her voice hardened, "She was discovered and took the blame?"

"She was discovered." Jenny's words sighed like the breeze through cottonwoods and creeks, "The client was interviewed when the deception was found out, and he claimed Rita had tried to seduce him and then carried out the whole scheme against his wishes. He was a greedy, selfish and disgusting _creep!_ But who was going to believe Rita against someone with his dollars and his influence? He got a grovelling apology from the firm, and Rita got a dismissal and the disapproval of the whole town. Everyone knows everyone else, everyone knew what happened, and everyone had an opinion on it - Rita was a disgrace in their eyes." Her lips trembled, "But not in mine; _never_ in mine."

"What about her family?" So far, Jenny had mentioned nothing about them, "What was their reaction?"

Lindsay remembered the conversation with Mrs Franklin she had conducted the day before, after an arduous number of phone-calls and messages, when a voice had finally answered to the name, and Rita's death had been made known. The conversation was brief and perfunctory; details requested, practicalities arranged. Rita's parents would not be coming out to New York, business kept them in Wyoming, but they would see to all necessary arrangements. Lindsay had barely kept the acid out of her voice as she responded to Mrs Franklin's clipped vowels and consonants, which lost no love or sorrow in delivery.

A look of loathing marred Jenny's expression, "Her family? They were as bad as everyone else, _worse _even. Her mother never had much good to say about Rita, and her father was too busy with his own affairs, in every sense of the word. The only thing they cared about was their reputation and name. They pretty much disowned her. They don't know I've come here, and I doubt they'd care."

There was little solace she could offer, but Lindsay tried, "You're a good friend, Jenny, it's not everyone who'd do what you have, and come all the way out here."

"She was my friend." Jenny said simply, "She would've done the same for me."

The two women were silent for a moment. Lindsay saw in front of her the truth of friendship and its endurance; a family in name, Rita may have lost, but a friend in everything else lived on and loved even after death. Ties other than blood bound lives, and she thought of all the lives she knew and how they corded to each other in love and loyalty.

What she had to ask though, she hoped would not be seen as breaking the trust of friendship. But as a detective, she could not lose the opportunity, "I need to ask one more question."

Jenny nodded, "Sure. It's okay."

"The letters, the ones Rita was sending out under different names and addresses, I need to know why, and I think you're the only person who can answer that now. Do you know why and what she was doing?"

She bit her lip and looked down. Her hands kneaded together before she answered. And then she met Lindsay's eyes, "Yes, I know."

………………………………............

The man known so recently as Rich - in name, in deceit and in destruction - sat with everything stripped away from him. In the poverty of his first and last identity, with nothing else to conceal him, and everything that made him who he was to expose him. He was a name and a number and very little else now.

It was all over. The life that he had run away from so many years before, after the death of Irene and the innocence of life before death. The life he had shared with his father, wherever he was now. He wondered, and for a moment the broken heart of a young boy abandoned by the father he would have died for, broke through the caulked and tarred layers he had sealed it up with.

Wearing an identical orange jumpsuit, sitting in an identical cell, on an identical bench to all the others in a city that pullulated with crimes and their consequences, he waited. The man revealed in the end by everyone he thought he had obliterated was nothing but another criminal, invisible in a crowd synonymous with wrong.

A guard, with a look that blanked across him, rattled the door and brought him to his feet.

"You. With me. Now."

The guard was a tyrant puppet-master, and he was learning to fear the blankness that concealed a legion of cruelties. But amongst legions more cruelties, not least his own, no one noticed. No one spoke out.

No one cared.

His feet dragged across the cell as the door swung open, and with every step more of his self broke away.

Until all that was left was fear.

………………………………..........

"It's a beautiful day outside, Mac." Stella sighed, and looked wistfully out of the window in her apartment, the panes giving her a triptych of the city landscape; September sun and glowing skies. A painted view, out of her reach. Only two days back home, and already she was almost screaming in frustration at the walls around her. One confined space exchanged for another: even though she was overjoyed to be out of hospital, her situation was still far from being to her satisfaction.

Once again, the bitterness and resentment at what had happened to her, and to everyone affected, clouded Stella's face. With Lindsay's visit yesterday, she was shocked to see the drawn and pale features of her colleague. Seeing Danny too, so lacking in his usual vitality and with injuries that trapped him to a few inches of movement in a hospital bed, had shaken her.

And she was still caught in the agitation of emotions from all Mac had told her about the interrogation, and his attack of the man responsible for the crimes against Danny and herself. Since the morning six days ago when he had come to tell her what he had done, she could still not decipher the truth of how she felt. But in asking herself how she would have reacted in Mac's position, that she could read clearly in herself, even if the truth was uncomfortable. She could not condemn Mac.

Whilst she sat by the window, he stood and hovered; the look on his face carefully neutral, but not hiding a certain wariness.

Her first reaction to all he told her was anger; anger at Mac for losing his control to such an extent, jeopardising his career, and his life. She had railed at him with all the fury she could muster. And he had listened and received it without a word until she had run down and run out of the energy for anger.

Then with two words of apology from him, she had sunk into guilt for everything he had gone through, and echoed his two words.

All the days since then, emotions between them stormed through her resentment, his defensiveness; her pride, his guilt; her guilt, his sorrow.

Storm clouds ragged around them even now, but Stella could see the promise of friendship tested and survived shining through, and knew the clouds were not permanent. Even though she was about to try the peace between them a little more.

Pulling herself up out of the chair, Stella gave him a half-smile, "You want some coffee?"

"I'll make some." He was turning towards the kitchen before she stopped him.

"No, that's not what I meant. Listen, Mac, I'm going crazy in here. There's a coffee shop less than half a block from here…"

The frown was already descending onto his face, "I don't think…"

"Whatever you may think, I want to get out of here, even if it's only for half an hour, okay?"

"You haven't left your apartment since you got home…"

"Which was two days ago, so all the more reason for me, and you, to do so now." She smiled brightly and stretched for her jacket, hiding the sudden wince of discomfort at the movement.

Mac's frown deepened and his arms folded over his chest, "I'm not sure you're up…"

"I'm up to a very short walk around the corner and a half hour sitting down drinking coffee." Stella leaned against the back of the couch and studied his face, "It's not going to hurt me." With a sudden memory of all that she and Danny had spoken of, she added in a softer voice, "I'm not going to disappear, Mac."

His hand clenched suddenly and his eyes steeled, "You disappeared from that crime scene, Stella. You _and_ Danny. Both of you nearly disappeared _permanently_."

"But we didn't!" She shook her head, and put her hand to her forehead, "Look, I know I can only imagine what it was like for you, and for the rest of the team with what happened to us, and I'm still seeing what it's doing to you _now, _Mac. But we have to start somewhere in getting over this, and this is as good a start as any." Her eyes met his, "Please, _I_ need to start getting over this as well, and this is one step on the way to that. I know you can understand."

Releasing a sigh, Mac let his arms drop to his side, "I do understand, but I don't want you to get…"

"I'm not going to get hurt."

His eyebrows lifted, "Seems you have every objection answered… All right, you win, but no longer than half an hour." Then a smile lifted the corner of his mouth, "So where you taking me?"

"You're going to love it, they do the _best _coffee." Stella beamed as her heart lightened.

"I believe you."

Mac held her jacket as she slipped into it. Then she turned to him, offering her arm and the unspoken acceptance of the offer she knew he had been about to make; recognising it was as much about Mac's need as any need he saw in her. Stella did not object to chivalry, as long as it was understood there was no weakness on her part necessitating its offer. And from her most loyal and true friend, she knew there was no judgement of weakness.

He took her arm and at the sedate pace she set, they walked out into the day.

……………………………….......

A man wearing a football jersey and a baseball cap sat in an old Lincoln convertible and scanned the passing sidewalk crowds. A newspaper rested across the steering wheel to divert any suspicion of loitering, but his eyes ignored the newsprint, focusing instead on the doorway of the apartment block opposite. It was the last action of a man reduced to the leader of a decimated legion. Rich was gone; Troy was gone; Jake, Rita and Joe were dead. His other associates had fled, the allure of more profitable ventures and the taint of failure sending them scurrying. It was up to him now, to finish what he had begun.

He was alone.

He was armed.

He saw them.

A man and a woman, the one holding the door open for the other, left the building and strolled down the street. The man's dark hair caught a streak of sunlight as they passed between the sidewalk trees, and the curls of the woman swung as she turned her head, looking at everything around her.

TJ scrunched the newspaper into a ruin of ink and paper, before he uncoiled himself from the car, slammed the door and followed them.

Unseen.

………………………………

Still reeling with the details of what Jenny had revealed to her about Rita, Lindsay walked along in a jumble of thoughts to Mrs Adams's basement apartment. She walked down the shadowed steps, her feet swishing through the first fall of gilded leaves and paused at the door.

More letters, more questions, more answers.

And more than friendship in the past of the old lady. Two lives together that had created a third between them. A child, a little boy, a secret life given away between the pages of love letters. Given up in the whisperings of scandal and disapproval.

Lost years before. But the past created the present and the future; and somewhere was the man the boy had become.

Whoever he was. Wherever he was.

………………………………......

He was behind them, watching from a short distance as the two in his sight stopped outside a coffee shop. He watched his hand on her back as they passed through the door. In a few paces, sinewing through the crowds, TJ stood by the door himself and looked through.

An afternoon clientele filled the chairs and tables along with a buzz of conversation and clink of cups and plates. The man was at the far end of the counter amongst a line of people, the woman was sitting facing the door, but her head was turned towards her companion as she called a few words to him.

Pulling his cap down, TJ wrapped his hand round the comfort of the weapon he carried and stepped through the door. As he did so, the woman turned, and looked straight into his eyes.

**Please, please review, I really hope you're still enjoying the story. One more chapter to go. I'd love to know what you think of this chapter, even if you didn't like it, please let me know! Thanks, Lily x**


	32. Chapter 32

**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY. **

**Notes**** Chapter 32 - the final chapter. THANK YOU to everyone who's read, reviewed, alerted and favourited and to everyone who's discussed it with me. **

**Thank you to _autumngold_ for your review; to _marialisa_ for helping me with ideas; to _electric-dreamer, Miss Poisonous, iluvCSI4ever, afrozenheart412, Blue Shadowdancer_ and _chrysalis escapist _for extra thoughts for this chapter - hope I haven't missed anyone out. Dedicated to _Blue Shadowdancer _for helping me with this chapter, and for updating XD**

**Here is the last (very long) chapter, enjoy and please review! **

Lost Letters: Chapter 32

'Shadows we are, like shadows we depart'

_23rd July_

… _Dear Jenny, _

_This is it, my first letter from the big city! Sorry for taking so long to write, but you know why I was hesitating to do so. However, here I am and now you know where that is. I'm getting myself settled and am setting myself up with ways to make my fortune, I hope anyway. I've met a great guy called Joe who I'll tell you all about, and I've found myself an apartment, with a wonderful neighbour called Mrs Adams. Maybe you're wondering why I didn't email, or call your cell? The fact is, I got to thinking and realised I needed something a little more permanent to send you after all that's happened. I'm guessing there's very little trace of me now at home, so at least if I write to you, you've got something to keep of me that's going to last a while longer than an email or a phone-call. Maybe that sounds arrogant? I hope not; I know you'll understand what I mean. So here's the first of what I hope will be many more letters to come; a new city, a new life. I'm looking forward to the future. Whatever happens. _

_Write soon, please don't forget me, yours always, Rita_

………………………………...

Stella looked into the eyes of the man walking towards her.

She knew.

Instinct, whetstone sharp after everything that had happened to her since another pair of eyes had stared into hers and almost robbed her life, launched her to her feet. A chair toppled backwards; the door swung with a jangle; the man's hand moved inside his jacket pocket.

Without conscious thought, her hand flew to her side.

She knew.

It was the other man in the photograph; the one Flack had shown her in the hospital, exposing the man who attacked her and his companion. The man who had hidden beneath a baseball cap, the unknown figure. And now he was standing in front of her whilst their surroundings slowed and slowed and froze.

The noise backdrop of the cafe faded and faded and muted. Freefalling memory and fear inside, but she took it and made it hers; not his, not the other man's. She took it and alchemised base fear into pure certainty. Stella did not wait to see what the man in front of her was drawing out of his pocket.

She knew.

She was faster.

She gripped her own weapon in her hand, raised it, and knew she was not going to fail.

……………………………….....

"You've come to ask the rest of your questions, haven't you girl?" Mrs Adams regarded the young detective with a smile she did not feel inside. The empty apartment above was still an oppression, vacant as it was of the laughter that used to echo, the running feet, the living voices. Now just the resonance of memories and ghosts.

Rita was gone.

The knick-knacks and ornaments that festooned Mrs Adams's shelves no longer rattled as the front door slammed. They sat and gathered dust. Stilled and sad. Too many times she had chastised the girl for her crashing doors and banging footsteps; but Rita had understood. She hoped anyway.

Mrs Adams ushered the detective in, settled her into an armchair and pressed a drink on her. Joshua watched from a shadowy corner. His burnished eye glowed, judging, before he sauntered out and stretched up onto the detective's knee, swirled himself round and draped luxuriously over her legs. He blinked in ecstasy and a long rumbling, purr erupted from his throat.

"Well Joshua-boy, looks like you got yourself a friend there. Don't you be digging your claws into her knees, that ain't polite." A smile wrinkled across her face.

"It's okay, really." The woman tickled his ears, "He's a handsome cat, Mrs Adams."

"And he's particular about who he lets stroke him, girl. He knows people, that old cat does, knows their hearts, whether they're good or bad. You've a good one, I can tell." The detective smiled shyly, and Mrs Adams sat back, "But you need to ask your questions, so let me hear them, girl."

The detective, Lindsay Monroe - she remembered her name - whose brown eyes warmed to mahogany as they caught the sun, rested a light hand on Joshua's back, "Mrs Adams… I need to know - what happened to him? To your son?"

With no other key than a voice that understood, Lindsay opened an old heart, tied shut with sealing wax and ribbons, and Mrs Adams found her memories and her life spilling out as a younger heart listened. It was time for answers, for the story of her life to be told to another, not just to the ink and paper she had sealed it into.

In the basement apartment, the same as many others across the city, but unique and unlike any other, the sigh of over-stretched air conditioning measured each moment. Mrs Adams let the bindings that held the pieces of her heart together fall away.

………………………………..

Everything in a slow-motion dream blur around her, Stella held her gun out; aiming at the man in the baseball cap who was still moving towards her. Startled gasps from customers; tinkling cutlery dropping to tables and to the floor; cups smashing and white pieces of broken china flying upwards as they fell down; it all happened behind a dim veil, beyond her.

The man was in front of her.

"Drop your weapon! _Now!_"

Her voice rang with the return of all the anger and authority that had been stolen from her since the crime scene; and it gave her a stanchion to hold onto whilst all around her began to eddy into chaos.

She would not fail.

But the man did not drop the gun that emerged from his pocket. Screams and horror erupted as people dominoed to the floor around her. Only Mac and herself left standing.

Two against one.

In one swift-motion lunge their adversary was across the floor, his weapon swinging between them, between all the people crouched in terror on the floor.

His mouth opened in a sneer, "You know what, detectives? You really shouldn't be here…"

……………………………….......

"You know." The old lady's voice creaked; an old sound, the sound of weather-beaten oak trees bending, not breaking.

Lindsay nodded, "I know. I read what you wrote. But I still don't understand all of it, and that's why I'm here. You said when I first visited, after that one box had been stolen, that there were lives and deaths in the letters, and I see that now, but why would someone want to steal them so badly?"

"_He_ wanted them. He came for them a month ago, a man claiming to be my son, saying he wanted to find out about his parents, and how they were, but I… I turned him away because there was cruelty in his eyes, even though he tried to hide them under a cap, and I didn't recognise them. He tried talking nice at first, and gave me all kinds of proof that he was who he said he was, and I realised then he _was_ telling the truth, he _was_ my son. But I couldn't give away my life to him, my letters. He only wanted them for bad, for blackmail against his father. They weren't for him, not to the man he'd grown up to be, however much that might be my fault."

Mrs Adams raised a face that was carved with strains and sorrows, and Lindsay wished she could ease some of them and tried to, "None of this is your fault…"

"Don't judge that too hastily, girl. Not until you've heard all I have to say."

Lindsay did as she was bidden, and listened as the story unfolded.

……………………………….

Stella caught Mac's eyes for a blink of a second and they read what was in each other's. She cursed herself for not moving fast enough to prevent the man drawing his gun, and threatening her partner and a cafe full of people. But it was his words that drew the most anger.

"I have _every_ right to be here." There was nothing but surety in Stella's voice, nothing but the officer she was in her stance as she faced him, "_You're_ the one who shouldn't be here."

The man laughed and it jarred like a cracked bell, "You think? I tell you, lady, in less time than you realise, I'm going to finish what my idiot associates didn't have the guts to do…"

"You're doing nothing!" Stella spat, and her gun did not waver. It all began to snap into place. This was the man pulling the strings, the man who had orchestrated the killings and the suffering; the shadow that had eluded them, "You're going down. We know your association with the man we've got waiting trial, the man who tried to kill my colleagues and me. You pull a gun in a public place, you're making a big mistake, mister. _Drop your weapon!_"

Another laugh, "You ain't in any position to tell me what to do. Drop your piece or I start firing on everyone here, starting with the other detective. You get to watch it all before I kill _you_."

She saw Mac reaching towards his holster; saw what was about to happen as the man swung his weapon. Saw the inevitable.

"_No…!_"

………………………………...

Mrs Adams's story unfolded.

An unhappy marriage for a young woman, hastening into dreams of wedded bliss that became nightmares. Married to a rich, cruel and overbearing man who spoke never with fists, but with derision and poison in every word. Leaving his wife in his shade, withering without love and affection. Until amongst the whirl of Manhattan Society, amongst the peacock wives and strutting husbands, she saw kind eyes that drew her towards them, melted her inside them, and pulled her into a whirlpool of clandestine trysts, delicious secrets, and then the scandal of a pregnancy outside marriage.

A child that could not be kept. A husband that would not keep her. A lover who did not keep his promises.

Abandoned.

She was left with nothing but her name. All Mrs Adams had now, was worked for with her own hands, no one else's. And through all the years, she had wondered what happened to the baby boy she gave up for adoption. Until he had called at her door, and set into motion the chain of events that led to so much hurt.

Mrs Adams finished speaking and her head bowed. Tears splashed onto trembling hands, and Joshua leaped down and shadowed towards her.

Lindsay spoke softly, sadly, "You did what you had to, things were different forty years ago, you did the best you could for your son. What he's done with his life, what he's become, that's down to _him_… He is what he's become."

………………………………....

In a smear of seconds, Stella saw fingers squeezing a trigger.

His fingers.

Her fingers.

A bullet exploded from a barrel. And then another, instantaneously. A scream caught on a stylus-scratched record rang round and round her head.

A man fallen.

A baseball cap knocked from its owner's head flew across the floor as he crashed down.

One man standing.

One woman standing.

Stella groped for Mac's gaze and found it. She lowered her weapon. The other man lay on the floor, her bullet in his shoulder. His bullet lodged in the wall. In a single stride, Mac was across the floor kicking the dropped handgun out of the way, bending over the swearing man. Her hands unwrapped themselves from her piece, found her cell phone and called the number she needed to.

And then the phone clattered onto the table and she realised her legs were not as steady as they had been, but a chair was pushed underneath her and she sat down, and lowered her head, letting grey motes dance in her vision for a moment…

"Stella?"

"I'm okay."

Mac's hands were on her shoulders. Stella lifted her head and managed a smile as a drink appeared between her hands. The café was full of far more people and voices than it had been. A few sips of scalding black coffee burned down her throat before she spoke again. His hands stayed where they were, an unobtrusive support. A laugh that shook only a little carried her next words, "I told you I wasn't going to get hurt…"

The worry in his eyes did not lessen, and she forced a smile onto her face, "I'm fine. Really." A glance over his shoulder showed the backs of a group of officers, "What's the deal?"

"They're taking him to Angel of Mercy, and then we start the questions."

Stella nodded as Mac gradually released his grip on her, but not his proximity. She met his eyes again, "You want to know why I hit him in the shoulder."

"It was deliberate."

Another nod, "I knew I could disarm him without a kill shot…" She looked through the gap to where the man was being removed on a stretcher, "Too many deaths, Mac. And too many questions I think he has the answers to."

His hands wrapped round hers, "We'll get the answers, Stella. Thanks to you. You got him. Well done."

She smiled. She had not failed.

………………………………....

It was all over.

Twenty one days since the crime scene; since two colleagues, two friends, two of a family, had almost been taken away. But now they were together, restored and at peace with one another.

Danny, enthroned against hospital pillows, made his judgements on the changes wrought in faces: Mac, still with haunting in his eyes, but a gaze that saw everyone even as it flickered every few seconds to his face and Stella's; Stella, sitting next to him, paler than she should be, but with vitality undiminished as she spoke to Angell; Angell, squeezed into the same plastic chair as Flack, and Danny did not miss the press of her knee against her partner's; Flack, his forehead crinkled in a frown, but laughing suddenly at Adam's remarks; Adam, another pair of eyes that darted back and forth between Stella and him, even as he spoke in a bolder tongue to Hawkes; the doctor, perched on a bench at the end of the bed next to his fellow medic; Sid, who had pumped Danny's hand and renewed a promise to take him to a game when he was out of hospital.

All with him, encircling him.

And Lindsay. Next to him. Her hand on his, thumb chafing his palm in the softest rhythm. A smile in love-hued eyes that was for no one else, before she turned to answer a question from Sid.

Danny seized the moment to reflect. They had the two men at the heart of two cases that had become tangled so dangerously. The man responsible for the injuries to himself and Stella and for three proven homicides: Rita Franklin, Joe Delaney and Jake Matthews - given a name only two days before due to Hawkes's painstaking reconstructive work - was behind bars; and found culpable also for the cold case murder of his stepmother. His name revealed at last: Jason Sampson, born in Iowa, now serving life in Riker's. But names seemed unimportant now, it was only a label and a formality.

It was the people who owned the names that mattered.

Rita, the girl whose crime scene had also become his own, was the tie to the case that Lindsay solved, the lady and her letters. More letters. Love letters that Rita had been sent to steal, and had not done, leading to her death. Death ordered by the other man they had in custody; the manipulator of so many lives, including Meg Stevens and Christopher Mendes, also awaiting trial. The figure behind the curtain was now revealed; Thomas James Kent, the son of the old lady who had begun the story, Mrs Adams.

Through a handful of letters that held the remnants of love; lives and deaths had played out. And now the final page.

Conversations lulled for a moment, and Danny asked the question that had itched at him since the morning of the crime scene.

"One thing I haven't figured out yet, guys…" Every face turned, and Danny pushed his glasses up, "The letters Rita had, all the different names and addresses - you solve that mystery in the end?"

Mac smiled, and turned to Lindsay, who flushed, "You got the person who worked that out right next to you, Danny."

"Don't keep me in suspense, Montana."

She squeezed his hand, "Her friend Jenny told me. She was writing them for people in the neighbourhood who could no longer see to write, old folks who still wanted to keep in touch the old-fashioned way. They dictated to her, she wrote them up and mailed them, and was paid a few dollars per letter, whatever they could afford. My guess is Thomas James Kent thought she was trying to trick him, that she really had stolen Mrs Adams's letters and was going for blackmail herself, and so he had her killed, and the evidence destroyed."

There was a mourning silence in the room, and Danny held onto Lindsay's hand.

He did not let go even as the group began to disperse as other duties called: Mac and Stella to visit someone important, as they put it; Flack and Angell to the precinct, and from there elsewhere, Danny grinned to himself as his wink to Flack was met with a glare. Adam, Hawkes and Sid were heading back to the lab.

Sid was the last to depart, hauled through the doors by Hawkes as his last sentence flew past Danny's ears; something about a story he had to tell him sometime, of what he had once found in a corpse…

As Lindsay blanched, he raised his eyebrows. She shook her head, "You_ really _don't want to know. Trust me."

Then it was just two of them left, and the moment to give Lindsay what he been keeping since persuading his mother to bring him a sheet of her 'fancy scented' paper, an envelope and a pen. Propped up in pillows, with her help, he had scratched laboriously the words he wanted to say, cursing the cast on his writing hand. But it was worth it.

All the words that had stoppered up at the times they should have been said: the pain at hurting her; the grief of moments lost; the joy in her presence. A love letter. His first, but maybe not his last. He handed it to her and watched, feeling his skin flush as she read and her face wavered and the sheet drifted onto the bed.

He cleared his throat, "Figured it was time I wrote someone a letter."

"Oh, Danny…"

She was warm around him, her hair soft against his face and her lips against his.

Nothing more needed to be said.

………………………………..

"You did good."

Angell took Flack's hand as they walked out of the hospital, "You've stood by each and every one of us through all this."

She felt Flack slow and in synergy, she did too. Her gaze wandered over his face, seeing a little less of the hollows in his cheeks.

He stopped suddenly, "And you've been at my side, Jess. I don't know if you realise how much… how much I appreciate that."

Her head tilted, and she gazed into eyes that matched the serene sky, "What say you let me make us dinner then? I'd appreciate that."

Flack raised his eyebrows, "I was thinking more of taking you out someplace for dinner."

"Don't trust my culinary skills, Don?" She grinned, "Seriously, I like cooking, and I do the _best_ lasagne."

Sun sparkled in blue irises, "You do, huh? Guess I'd better be the judge of that."

"Maybe I'll even find you a little something special for dessert." Try as she might, Angell could not keep the wink out of her voice, and a grin spread across her face as she strode ahead, knowing Flack was following in her wake.

……………………………….

Mrs Adams sat in the September afternoon, listening to the trees lilting in the breeze that blew away some of the heat that had subjugated the city too long. Through her open door, tendrils of smoke from papers collapsing to dust and ashes, curled upwards. Lithe, grey ghosts merged with the rings of smoke from her pipe.

The letters were gone. All of them. Ink and paper and old silk ribbons burned away to nothing, back to before they existed together.

Except what they had done, and all that they had recorded, could never be undone. The hearts broken were still not mended.

Not yet.

She sat alone. Joshua was disappeared into the cool nooks of the building; stalking his secret pursuits. She sat and watched the world pass, whilst the white wisp clouds drifted across cerulean skies above. No one looked down and saw her. Just another old lady, out in the sun, watching her time go by.

But then a young woman, walking on her own amongst the crowd, halted by the railings; with a tumble of red hair and a dress that swirled around her.

_Another swirling dress, another young face smiling down, the crash of a door slamming…_

Mrs Adams rose from her deckchair, "You looking for someone, girl?"

"I'm looking for a Mrs Adams. Do you know her?"

She huffed, "Should hope to by now, the years I've lived with that name, guess you've found who you're looking for. Come down and talk to me."

The young woman trotted down the steps and stood in front of her, wringing her hands round each other, "I'm sorry to be bothering you…"

"Ain't no bother. Company's always welcome. So who are you, and why'd you want to be speaking to such an old lady as myself?"

A smile fleeted over her features, "I don't think you're such an old lady, not really."

"Older than you by a good many years, girl!" Mrs Adams retorted, "And you ain't answered my question yet."

A hand was thrust out, "My name's Jenny, and I wanted to come speak to you about my friend, Rita. She told me so much about you, I thought you could maybe tell me a little more about her."

Straying gleams of sunlight glinted fire in Jenny's hair, and stirred a spark in the old lady's heart.

Eyes sparkling with diamonds, Mrs Adams clasped the offered hand, "Come on in and make yourself welcome then girl. A friend of Rita's is a friend of mine."

The two women stepped through the dappling shadows. An old hand, worn by the years, and a young hand unscarred by time, joined in the remembrance of a friend.

……………………………….................

"You know the way to a man's heart, Jess." Flack sat back with a sated look on his face and a scraped clean plate in front of him, "The best lasagne I've had in years, and believe me, that's saying something from a man who's eaten many lasagnes in his time."

"Not going to argue with you…" Angell smiled at the outraged look she teased into his expression.

"You suggesting I got a few too many pounds about my person?"

It made her laugh outright, "Sensitive, Don? Anyhow, even if you had…" She pushed her chair back and moved round to gather the plates off the table, leaning over so her hair fell over her shoulder and brushed his arm, "I'm not going to complain about a little more Don Flack in my life."

There was silence for a moment, and then Angell felt a hand sweeping her hair back, and tingling over her neck. It stopped her hands at their task and sent a thrill of heat through her veins. The hand moved to the back of her neck and fingers caressed her skin to a sensual burning.

"Jess…"

Her hand found the line of his jaw and her fingertips ran along it before straying to his lips, silencing any more words from him. She took hold of his other hand, and pulled him gently to his feet.

They stood in accord, eyes locked, hands furled round each other, fingers restless, needing. And she drew him onwards, upwards without protest, without words, without pause. Anything else could wait.

……………………………….................

Neither of them spoke during the drive. Mac kept his eyes and mind solidly on the traffic, not letting the memories of the last time he had driven the same route. He would not replay again the moment Lindsay and he flew across the ground to the burned mass of wreckage…

The moments were passed. They had survived, all of them. He drove on through the ebb and flow of cars and pedestrians, Stella sitting beside him with her elbow propped against the window and her chin cupped in her hand, gazing out with her own thoughts.

It was only as Mac pulled up on the waste ground that she turned to him, "This is where I was?"

"Yes." His hands stayed on the steering wheel.

She nodded, and opened the door quickly. Mac watched her for a moment as she stood at the side of the car looking in the direction of the river, black and silver in the sun, before he got out and joined her.

A quick smile met him, "You okay?"

"Just about to ask you the same."

"I'm fine."

They were silent for a few moments while the breeze sighed round them; lifting their hair and whispering across the nape of Mac's neck.

"I don't remember it, only those moments in the car and being dragged away, then nothing much else." Stella said, her arms wrapped around her and her gaze wandering over the present and the past.

His arm brushed her side, and he kept his eyes from the blackened abrasion on the ground, not far enough away from them, "Maybe just as well."

"Maybe." She turned to look where he was refusing to. Her arms pulled closer round her body, and she shook her head, "I was lucky, Mac. If he hadn't…"

Mac stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, stopping his own horrors of the possible, the things that had _not_ happened, "You got out, Stella. You survived."

"Thanks to him."

"And your own strength."

"If you and Lindsay and Angell hadn't found me…"

"But we did." Mac saw the phantoms behind her eyes, still not exiled. Neither were they from himself.

She nodded, and then with a quick, bright smile, pushed herself away from the car, "Come on then, we're here to see someone I've been wanting to meet for a while."

……………………….

Zee was sitting on an upturned crate in the doorway of the warehouse, soaking in the sun rays and smiling into warmth that lay like chiffon over him. Life was good, and for the living.

He saw the car pull up, and remembered suddenly the day and night nearly three weeks ago when his life had changed irrevocably: the car with the two men shouting, words flying round them like hail; and then the shot, the man falling.

He remembered ducking back into the doorway, peering out; too far away to be seen, but close enough to see the other person beside the car, unmoving. And then the flames, blazoning the black metal as the man ran away.

He remembered running, feeling the heat through his battered sneakers. A woman beside the car; no second thought as he grabbed her arms and pulled her away.

He remembered the horror of the car exploding with a howl of banshees as he tried desperately to hold onto the woman lying in his arms; remembered her eyes fluttering then closing; remembered cradling her, her blood on his hands, begging her to wake up, _please_, wake up, _please_…

_Panic. Terror. What do I do? I've killed her. My fault. My fault…_

He remembered the noise and the sirens, and more cars, more people. All spilling into his territory. The three people with lights and questions that dazzled him.

Searching for her. Finding her. Taking her away. Whilst he had been pulled along in the tides of people and questions and noise…

All in the past.

Zee returned to the present, and the two figures getting out of the car. He watched them talking, seeing the river breezing in their hair. Watched them turn and walk towards him.

She was leading the way. _Stella. _He had discovered her name from the detective with the long dark hair, and had held it tightly, saying it over and over in his head. To help her.

It had worked. She was safe. As she reached him, he stood and this time, he was in her arms. Feeling warmth and vibrancy in her, glimmering in her eyes as she stepped back and held onto his hands. Her companion, the man whose fear had enveloped him that night, stood behind her; and Zee saw hopes of peace in his eyes.

"Thank you."

Words he did not expect, but were no less welcome. He lowered his eyes, and scuffed his sneakers in the dust, trying to brush her thanks away, "Couldn't have left you there…"

She repeated her words, and so did the man. Detective Taylor. Zee remembered his name as well. The man who had come searching for his friend.

Zee looked at Stella. And saw the sun through her hair, falling on her skin, and felt its light replace the darkness that seeped into him that night when he thought he had killed her.

She spoke again, "You saved my life. There must be something I can do for you?"

He shook his head, vehement, "No. No. Didn't help you for any reward. Don't need any help, got everything I want here. I'm happy."

They accepted the truth of what he said and talked a little longer until the sun climbed higher. Then Zee watched them walk away, back to the car, hands brushing in step and smiled at what he guessed at.

They left him a man alone. As he preferred to be. He sat back on the upturned crate, turned his face up to the sun and smiled.

Life was good.

………………………….

Stella stood next to her partner on the bridge across the boating lake, amongst strewings of leaves. A boat passed below, ripples ebbing from its bow until the water smoothed.

"You want to head home?"

She shook her head, and turned to face him, "Not yet. You don't know how good this feels, just being outside."

"I can guess." He smiled, but still the lines of concern, and fear, were round his mouth, "I don't want you to run yourself down…"

Stella laid her hand on his chest, on the scar he carried, and came to a decision as to what she had to say, "Mac, I know what I'm capable of. And… and this might be hard for you to hear, but…" She looked down at herself, and then back to him, "Some day... some day you _might_ lose me for real - we do a dangerous job, we both know that death in the line of duty's not impossible, but we still do the job. And someday I might lose _you_. That's part of the deal when… when you care for someone very much, you have to accept that one day, they might not be there any more. You know that."

The breeze blew round them and stirred the leaves over their feet. Mac's eyes cast down, and Stella kept the warmth of her hand on him.

"I do know that." He said finally. And one hand moved round her waist, laying gentle on the healing wound she carried herself.

Silent together for a moment, not breaking their hold on each other, until a smile crept onto Stella's face, "You know, it also means that whatever time we have, however long that is - and I'm telling you Mac, I have every intention of living to a grand old age - it needs the most making of it."

It brought brightness back into his eyes, and his mouth crinkled, "Well, we have the afternoon free, so what do you have in mind?"

Stella looked at him, and ran her hand down his arm, her skin brushing over the thin shirt material. It stirred a memory, and her lips puckered into a grin, "I seem to remember you saying something about hating buying certain items of clothing… maybe we could remedy that."

Ignoring his mild protest, she took her hand in his, and led him off the bridge and through the rustling leaves.

They walked away together, hands joined, as the sun lighted through the trees upon them.

_Finis_

**It's over! The longest story I've ever written! I started this in June after posting a handful of letters, with no idea how and when it would end, but this is the ending, and I would _really _love to know what you think. **

**Please, please review, even if just for this chapter; if you've been reading through, I'd love to hear from you, and will always reply. Two stories are upcoming - a collaborative crossover and a sequel to 'Cowboys'. So until then, thank you for reading, Lily x**


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